----- Original Message -----
From: "Peter C. Wallace" <pcw_at_mesanet.com>
To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts"
<cctalk_at_classiccmp.org>
Sent: Monday, September 13, 2004 10:18 AM
Subject: Re: Replicas - was Re: *** Ideas needed for developing interactive
> On Sun, 12 Sep 2004, vrs wrote:
>
> > > An SMT transistorized machine would be an interesting project, but
hell to
> > > debug I would imagine.
> >
> > One could perhaps build it out of modules -- make SMT versions of Rxxx
> > modules, etc., then use those to build up the CPU. Then one could debug
at
> > the module level before tackling the whole thing.
> >
> > Vince
> >
>
> Thats something I could do as a feasability experiment
>
> Are the schematics of the (say dual FF that used for the registers) on
line
> anywhere? I could sneek that on my next mixed 4 layer panel
Here is a nice collection of many the module schematics:
http://bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/modules/KI10_moduleSchems_V2_Oct74.pdf
and here the ones that are specific to the straight-8:
http://bitsavers.org/pdf/dec/pdp8/F-87_PDP-8_MaintMan.pdf starting in
chapter 10.
I have been looking at the R210 module when thinking about feasibility,
myself. It is double-height, so the original took up 0.5" by 5.375" of
backplane space. (It is on page 10-15, or page 255 of the PDF.) I chose
that one because it looked fairly hairy :-).
I think it would be interesting to make one with an edge connector (so it
could be tested in a real straight-8), then "smash" it into the area
formerly taken by the socket. In principle, you could do that to the whole
CPU, then decide if it was worth the trouble to re-arrange the components
(or not) after you were fairly sure of the correctness of your
implementation.
Vince
Received on Mon Sep 13 2004 - 15:11:49 BST