Emulators of Classic Computers

From: Tom Jennings <tomj_at_wps.com>
Date: Thu Jan 22 16:47:32 2004

On Tue, 2004-01-20 at 12:21, ben franchuk wrote:

> > What appears to be the most expensive aspect of the project thus far?
>
> The sockets :)

No sh*t! There are however plenty of computer tubes around, the 5xxx and
6xxx series. Since the clock is slow I chose high-speed dekatrons to
generate the 20 bit times (bit0 - bit 17, dead0, dead1), and clock and
memory busses would probably require some 6L6's as cathode followers,
that sort of stuff, but most of the tubes are available and with
sufficient design margins, not hard to keep running.

A major problem in ye olden dayes were crappy power supplies. I figured
I'm use 100% solid-state power with a PIC to do sequencing and control,
which matters a lot for reliable tube stuff. Let's not be tooo
pedantic... :-)
Received on Thu Jan 22 2004 - 16:47:32 GMT