Classic Computers vs. Classic Computing

From: Zane H. Healy <healyzh_at_aracnet.com>
Date: Fri Sep 14 12:11:15 2001

>An idea that I've been thinking about is the re-implementation of a classic
>architecture (for me, probably a PDP-11) using entirely modern hardware. One
>way to go about this would be to use a Xilinx FPGA. I know that this has
>already been done for the PDP-8. Another approach would be to view a Wintel

Mentec and I think one other company have implemented the PDP-11 in FPGA.
IIRC, Mentec's version is about 4x as fast as a 11/93.

>PC as a microcoded platform, and reimplement the PDP-11 on that hardware.
>The microcode would be written in tightly crafted Pentium code. The machine
>would bootstrap itself by loading the microcode from a special partition on
>the hard drive. Since the hardware has memory to burn relative to the

Now I like this idea!

                        Zane
--
| Zane H. Healy                    | UNIX Systems Administrator |
| healyzh_at_aracnet.com (primary)    | OpenVMS Enthusiast         |
|                                  | Classic Computer Collector |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
|     Empire of the Petal Throne and Traveller Role Playing,    |
|                   and Zane's Computer Museum.                 |
|                 http://www.aracnet.com/~healyzh/              |
Received on Fri Sep 14 2001 - 12:11:15 BST

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