Create a VAX CPU with FPGA?

Patrick Finnegan pat at computer-refuge.org
Thu Mar 3 23:21:32 CST 2005


Curt @ Atari Museum declared on Thursday 03 March 2005 11:47 pm:
> I personally would rather see some more hobbyist work on PCI Qbus
> and/or Unibus cards, the current commercial ones run $2500-$3000 and
> it would be GREAT to run SimH and have access to all the drives, tape
> systems and so forth directly with something more like $250-$500 vs
> the $2500-$3000 cards.

I've considered this before, and the PCI part seems to be a sizable 
stubling block.

An ISA card might be an easier way to start off.  I've got access to a 
fair range of machines with ISA slots, from IBM 5150 PCs to PIII 
desktops and IBM RS/6000s to DEC Alphas.

Hmm, a ISA->QBUS adapter in an Alpha, running SIMH and talking to an 
RL02.  This sounds like fun. :)  Or hell, port the NetBSD/vax RL02 
driver (after fixing it so it actually worked again) to NetBSD/Alpha (or 
Linux/Alpha if one was so inclined). :)

Pat
-- 
Purdue University ITAP/RCS        --- http://www.itap.purdue.edu/rcs/
The Computer Refuge               --- http://computer-refuge.org


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