FPGA VAX update, now DIY TTL computers

[der Mouse]

> There are plenty of junk boards that have no particular useful
> function.

Doubtless true, but...

> I've got a bunch of ISA cards that I salvaged.  All were old models
> of a gizmo that appeared to a PC as a monochrome adapter, but which
> translated the CPU writes to video memory to serial codes to a VT-220
> type terminal.

...this does *not* qualify!  Argh!

> Why would anyone want to do this?

So you can take a peecee with a BIOS not supporting serial console and
hook it up to a multi-serial-port gadget for remote console access, of
course.

I believe there's a company making those gadgets right now (PC Weasel,
I think they call it - it took a while before I twigged to the
difference between that and the kind of weasel used to read "odd" disks
- catweasel, I think it's called).  That they have a market indicates
that this is not "no particular useful function", even today.

> Dunno--it wasn't fast and all of these boards lack the PROMs that
> would make them work in any case.

Well, I suppose what's done is done.  But taking a board that needs
nothing but a PROM to be a highly useful gadget and blowtorching it to
turn it into a pile of spare parts is the sort of thing that makes me
wince when I hear of it, akin to that time I mentioned I was looking
for the SBus card part of an xbox (the Sun SBus extender, not the game
console) and someone said something like "oh dear, just two weeks ago I
acrapped a dozen of them".

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