PiDP-11 – Recreating PDP-11/70 with Raspberry Pi • Hacker News Board

Re: PiDP-11 – Recreating PDP-11/70 with Raspberry Pi

#11

Post by burnte » Mon, Apr 19, 2021, 7:15 PM UTC

pmiller2 wrote: post #9

Koshkin wrote: post #6

Honestly, I've always thought a high quality 3D computer model of the entire thing (including the peripherals) would serve the purpose of learning about this stuff much better; an added benefit: doesn't take space. Learning in the virtual space in general has a huge potential. Even watching educational videos (like those found in abundance on YouTube) suffices in many cases. The age of plastic toys is behind us.

Hard, hard disagree. Nothing beats learning by getting your hands on a thing.

Agreed that hands on is always best, but virtual is great if you can lay hands on. PDPs are a bit hard to ship around.

Re: PiDP-11 – Recreating PDP-11/70 with Raspberry Pi

#12

Post by lsllc » Mon, Apr 19, 2021, 7:20 PM UTC

fortran77 wrote: post #5

I have the PiDP-11, assembled it myself from the kit. It was exciting for me to be able to run RSTS/E, which is one of the first operating systems I ever worked on. I only wish I had a Decwriter to physically connect to it. And visitors to my office love the blinky lights.

Or a DataSouth DS-180 dot-matrix printer!

Re: PiDP-11 – Recreating PDP-11/70 with Raspberry Pi

#13

Post by phamilton4 » Mon, Apr 19, 2021, 7:30 PM UTC

This is awesome! I'm definitely looking at getting one of these kits!

Re: PiDP-11 – Recreating PDP-11/70 with Raspberry Pi

#14

Post by wrs » Mon, Apr 19, 2021, 7:31 PM UTC

timonoko wrote: post #2

Nova 1200 would be easier. Just glass panel painted mostly black and regular off-the-shelf switches. Bigger problem is the menacing glow of blinkenlichts. Leds will never do.

Indeed, this era of machine retained a sort of “electromechanical” feel that the incandescent bulbs contribute to. Not to mention the DECwriter that was usually attached to it.

Re: PiDP-11 – Recreating PDP-11/70 with Raspberry Pi

#15

Post by cesaref » Mon, Apr 19, 2021, 7:34 PM UTC

fortran77 wrote: post #5

I have the PiDP-11, assembled it myself from the kit. It was exciting for me to be able to run RSTS/E, which is one of the first operating systems I ever worked on. I only wish I had a Decwriter to physically connect to it. And visitors to my office love the blinky lights.

I assembled an LSI-11 from bits from various university departments back in the late 80s with the intention of getting RSTS running, but struggled to find everything I needed (I was short of an RL01 I seem to remember). I had lots of fun though, and got RT-11 running from 8 inch disk.

The kit looks very cool, and would be significantly more convenient than the 19 inch racks I had before :) My how things have moved on (for the better).

Re: PiDP-11 – Recreating PDP-11/70 with Raspberry Pi

#16

Post by anonymousisme » Mon, Apr 19, 2021, 7:38 PM UTC

Bought one of these about two years ago. Did some of the assembly, but it's still not done.

Looking forward to playing "Super Star Trek" on it.

Re: PiDP-11 – Recreating PDP-11/70 with Raspberry Pi

#17

Post by alanlit » Mon, Apr 19, 2021, 7:50 PM UTC

timonoko wrote: post #2

Nova 1200 would be easier. Just glass panel painted mostly black and regular off-the-shelf switches. Bigger problem is the menacing glow of blinkenlichts. Leds will never do.

If the PiDP11 follows Oscar's PiDP8 then the blinkenlights are pulse-width-modulated and you do get a warm glow out of them rather than a heartless and cold on/off. My recollection is that more of the PI's cpu cycles are spent doing this than are spent emulating the PDP8 (and, I'm guessing, the PDP11).

Re: PiDP-11 – Recreating PDP-11/70 with Raspberry Pi

#18

Post by newswasboring » Mon, Apr 19, 2021, 8:09 PM UTC

pmiller2 wrote: post #9

Koshkin wrote: post #6

Honestly, I've always thought a high quality 3D computer model of the entire thing (including the peripherals) would serve the purpose of learning about this stuff much better; an added benefit: doesn't take space. Learning in the virtual space in general has a huge potential. Even watching educational videos (like those found in abundance on YouTube) suffices in many cases. The age of plastic toys is behind us.

Hard, hard disagree. Nothing beats learning by getting your hands on a thing.

VR can help with that. Not with all things as haptic feedback is not not ready yet. But there are people already making gloves with feedback for 50 dollars or so.

Re: PiDP-11 – Recreating PDP-11/70 with Raspberry Pi

#19

Post by williesleg » Mon, Apr 19, 2021, 8:29 PM UTC

That's pretty sweet, no H1B's there, things actually worked back then.

Re: PiDP-11 – Recreating PDP-11/70 with Raspberry Pi

#20

Post by watersb » Mon, Apr 19, 2021, 8:34 PM UTC

Koshkin wrote: post #6

Honestly, I've always thought a high quality 3D computer model of the entire thing (including the peripherals) would serve the purpose of learning about this stuff much better; an added benefit: doesn't take space. Learning in the virtual space in general has a huge potential. Even watching educational videos (like those found in abundance on YouTube) suffices in many cases. The age of plastic toys is behind us.

Typing stuff, interacting at a virtual terminal, sure.

But if you key in a bootloader via the toggle switches on the console, you quickly learn to think in octal (base-8).

If you live with the console blinkenlights for a while, you get a sense of roughly what the machine is doing as it winds its way through the code.

As with flight simulators, you can learn a great deal with virtual machines and simulators. But without tactile feedback, you won't quite understand how other people experienced these machines.

And much of the programming idioms arise from those experiences.