an288@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Mark Hittinger) (04/17/91)
I've been working on a 10 emulator off and on since they took mine away from me (sniff) back in 83. I was never able to achieve enough performance to justify until recently, with the new MIPS chip and the 80486. Its serious enough to consider now. I am up to KI-10 but I am having trouble with the tops-20 pager and the extended instructions. I know of two other people that are working on this also. Hopefully something will turn up for you eventually.....hang on to those backups ! hahaha It IS difficult writing an emulator when you no longer have access to the original hardware (to check out ambiguities in the hardware manual). Anyhow....it should be possible to construct a small pc card to emulate a kl10b with around...say.... .9MIPS to 1MIP. The pc would serve as the I/O system. This would mean a re-write of the i/o internals of the particular operating system....be it t-10,t-20, tenex, twenex, or ITS. good luck, and let me know if you hear of anything -- Mark Hittinger [answering machine (606)-272-2424 PO BOX 43358 Middletown, KY 40243
jallen@eeserv1.ic.sunysb.edu (Joseph Allen) (04/19/91)
In article <9104171333.AA12267@cwns1.INS.CWRU.Edu> an288@cleveland.Freenet.Edu writes: >I've been working on a 10 emulator off and on since they took mine away >from me (sniff) back in 83. I was never able to achieve enough performance >to justify until recently, with the new MIPS chip and the 80486. Its >serious enough to consider now. I am up to KI-10 but I am having trouble >with the tops-20 pager and the extended instructions. I know of two other >people that are working on this also. Hopefully something will turn up for >you eventually.....hang on to those backups ! hahaha Cool project! Maybe you can skip the extended address instructions (is that what you mean?), I don't think TOPS-20 used them (although I could be wrong about this). The byte instructions must be fun. Once I heard a rumor that someone was going to put a DEC20 on a chip... anyone here about this? I have no other details. -- #define h 23 /* Height */ /* jallen@ic.sunysb.edu (129.49.12.74) */ #define w 79 /* Width */ /* Amazing */ int i,r,b[]={-w,w,1,-1},d,a[w*h];m(p){a[p]=2;while(d=(p>2*w?!a[p-w-w]?1:0:0)|( p<w*(h-2)?!a[p+w+w]?2:0:0)|(p%w!=w-2?!a[p+2]?4:0:0)|(p%w!=1?!a[p-2]?8:0:0)){do i=3&(r=(r*57+1))/d;while(!(d&(1<<i)));a[p+b[i]]=2;m(p+2*b[i]);}}main(){r=time( 0L);m(w+1);for(i=0;i%w?0:printf("\n"),i!=w*h;i++)printf("#\0 "+a[i]);}
lewine@cheshirecat.webo.dg.com (Donald Lewine) (04/20/91)
In article <1991Apr18.221109.29852@sbcs.sunysb.edu>, jallen@eeserv1.ic.sunysb.edu (Joseph Allen) writes: |> Cool project! Maybe you can skip the extended address instructions (is that |> what you mean?), I don't think TOPS-20 used them (although I could be wrong |> about this). The byte instructions must be fun. (1) TOPS-20 *does* make use of the extended addressing stuff. I think that TOPS-10 does also. In any event, it is not that difficult to include. I don't know of any compilers that generate code that runs outside of section zero, but I have not looked in a long time. (2) The byte instructions are fairly easy. The biggest problem is dealing with 36-bits on a machine that has 32-bit longs. |> |> Once I heard a rumor that someone was going to put a DEC20 on a chip... anyone |> here about this? I have no other details. No. I designed a one chip PDP-10 as a test for some CAD tools and gate array technology. It was never built. I think I still have the design someplace. Took me a whole weekend! The real questions is: would anyone want one badly enough to to pay to get the gate array built? Also, DEC still has the rights to the software and I don't think they are willing to give it away. Anyway, I spent from about 1969-1980 building -10 software, hardware, and microcode. I would love to see a PDP-10 emulator, but not enough to do any work on it. I will be happy to answer questions on how the machine, or Tops-10 or Tops-20 worked. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Donald A. Lewine (508) 870-9008 Voice Data General Corporation (508) 366-0750 FAX 4400 Computer Drive. MS D112A Westboro, MA 01580 U.S.A. uucp: uunet!dg!lewine Internet: lewine@cheshirecat.webo.dg.com
terry@venus.sunquest.com (Terry R. Friedrichsen) (04/23/91)
uunet!dg!lewine writes: >jallen@eeserv1.ic.sunysb.edu (Joseph Allen) writes: >> Cool project! Maybe you can skip the extended address instructions (is that >> what you mean?), I don't think TOPS-20 used them (although I could be wrong >> about this). The byte instructions must be fun. > (1) TOPS-20 *does* make use of the extended addressing stuff. I > think that TOPS-10 does also. In any event, it is not that > difficult to include. I don't know of any compilers that > generate code that runs outside of section zero, but I have > not looked in a long time. TOPS-10 definitely did support the extended-address stuff, but not until one of the 7.0n releases, unless I am mistaken. And, of course, TOPS-10 continued to run on KA's and KI's, so the extended-address instructions would not be totally necessary for TOPS-10. When I finally left DEC-10 land (not without a great deal of regret), DEC had promised that the FORTRAN compiler would be able to generate non-section-0 code. > (2) The byte instructions are fairly easy. The biggest problem > is dealing with 36-bits on a machine that has 32-bit longs. I just wrote 'em the other day for my own emulator (which is in a fairly embryonic stage at this point). They were "fairly" easy, but definitely fun, as they were non-trivial due to the 32/36 bit stuff. I can't even force myself to THINK about 36-bit (or 71-bit - there's a trivia question for you) floating point; I would despair of ever getting the low-order bit EXACTLY right in all situations ... >> Once I heard a rumor that someone was going to put a DEC20 on a chip... >> anyone here about this? I have no other details. > No. I designed a one chip PDP-10 as a test for some CAD tools > and gate array technology. It was never built. I think I > still have the design someplace. Took me a whole weekend! That's very impressive. I considered building one out of bit-slice at one time, but this sounds like a far better deal. I'm surprised it went this quickly, especially with paging and the cache to do ... > The real questions is: would anyone want one badly enough to > to pay to get the gate array built? At one time, I'd have paid good money for a DEC-10 on my desk; but I'm addicted to Unix and superfast workstations now (though not without some (more) regret). > Also, DEC still has the > rights to the software and I don't think they are willing to > give it away. Worse, I hear that they are not even going to give the TOPS-20 sources to the customers they are abandoning. At least the TOPS-10 folks have sources and can do their own support. I can think of nothing but unprintable adjectives (complete with raising questions about their parentage) for the DEC folks who made THAT decision. >Anyway, I spent from about 1969-1980 building -10 software, hardware, >and microcode. I would love to see a PDP-10 emulator, but not enough >to do any work on it. I will be happy to answer questions on how the >machine, or Tops-10 or Tops-20 worked. I was a TOPS-10 hacker from 1976 to 1985; never did any hardware stuff beyond using a soldering iron on a KA-10 a few times. I am writing an emulator, mostly just for fun; I'm not really motivated enough to try to actually make the I/O work (or the floating-point, for that matter). But I also would be quite happy to entertain questions. >-------------------------------------------------------------------- >Donald A. Lewine (508) 870-9008 Voice >Data General Corporation (508) 366-0750 FAX >4400 Computer Drive. MS D112A >Westboro, MA 01580 U.S.A. > >uucp: uunet!dg!lewine Internet: lewine@cheshirecat.webo.dg.com Terry R. Friedrichsen terry@venus.sunquest.com (Internet) uunet!sunquest!terry (Usenet) terry@sds.sdsc.edu (alternate address; I live in Tucson) Quote: "Do, or do not. There is no 'try'." - Yoda, The Empire Strikes Back