7 ms·

PDP 11/70 Emulator (2020)

56 points by threeme3 6y ago

Taniwha 6y ago
pulls out trusty "mov -(pc), -(pc)" to see if it works ....
cereal_console 6y ago
A fun project I finished a few months ago was building a PiDP-11 kit: https://obsolescence.wixsite.com/obsolescence/pidp-11 https://obsolescence.wixsite.com/obsolescence/pidp-11 The creator did an amazing job on this kit and it looks great in my study!
- em500 6y ago
  Neat. This VAX-11/780 kit is also great: https://vxcompany.com/2016/02/13/a-working-vax-11780-revisited https://vxcompany.com/2016/02/13/a-working-vax-11780-revisit...
  - 2sk21 6y ago
    That’s amazing. I learnt programming on a VAX 11/750 so this gave me an acute nostalgia attack
    - vaxman 6y ago
      Just want to point out that the 11/750 was newer than the OG 11/780 and 11/782. Then came the 11/730 and eventually the MicroVax (based on the 78032 microprocessor that was hardware compatible with 68000 bus systems, fabricated at DEC’s famed Hudson plant)...then they went on to release 8000, 6000, 9000 and 10000 series while getting what would become Alpha out the door. Before Bill Gates hired David Cutler away from DEC and created the Windows dystopia, we had the finest hardware, operating systems and applications that money could buy (maybe with the exception of our database management systems lol).
      - icedchai 6y ago
        DEC was definitely the pride of the New England tech scene for most of the 80's and 90's. One of the first multiuser systems I worked with was a VAX 11/730 running VMS. However, to say they had the "finest operating systems" is a bit of an exaggeration. You ever use Ultrix? It paled in comparison to SunOS. Example: it didn't even support shared libraries, which was a big deal with small disks.
        guenthert 6y ago
        Did SunOS (before 5, i.e. BSD based) or did it come with Solaris (SunOS 5, SystemV based)? I honestly don't remember. I do remember that Interactive Unix around '92 (later bought by SUN to enhance their x86 port) did not support shared libraries, when Linux did. And yes, that was a big deal back then. EDIT: http://iraf.noao.edu/docs/src/dosf/unixsmg-N-3.2.html http://iraf.noao.edu/docs/src/dosf/unixsmg-N-3.2.html indicates that BSD based SunOS did offer shared libraries (at least late in its live, as early on it was a 3rd party project to add those: https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/0433/bb8fb59cc457b74b3f8ad010f216309b6154.pdf https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/0433/bb8fb59cc457b74b3f8ad0...).
        icedchai 6y ago
        I remember shared libraries on SunOS 4.x. SunOS 4.x was retroactively renamed to Solaris 1 sometime around the first Solaris 2 (SunOS 5.x) release. I ran it on both a Sun 3/60 and a Sparc. Up until Solaris 2.4 or so, most folks still preferred the older SunOS.
        vaxman 6y ago
        Ultrix WAS DEFINITELY trash —I didn’t even consider it a “DEC” operating system (was referring to VMS, RSX, RT11, VAXeln, RSTS/E, TOPS). You have to realize that Ultrix was despised by virtually (hah) the entire organization. It was a product of DECWRL in Palo Alto for use in situations where the customer required Unix due to edict or integration, much like Apple A/UX and many others.
        6y ago
  - cereal_console 6y ago
    Wow! Great project! Added to my to-do list.
  - vaxman 6y ago
    Read his site and want to point out for the younglings that even as far back as 1984, DEC was showing slides at DECUS that projected 1 BIPS performance from future models. They went into intricate detail explaining how their multi-stage pipelining and other cooling techniques would scale. Then Sun Microsystems declared bankruptcy so it could pivot off of 680x0 tech (that was no match for the VAX) and onto SPARC. (Trump’s companies and many others used the same technique.) That prompted DEC to begin developing what would become Alpha whose architecture was reportedly stolen by Intel while being shopped to them as a potential second source supplier, then misappropriated into Pentium Pro/II/III/IV models which all but killed the market for minicomputers from DEC (there was a legal settlement that resulted in Intel buying DEC’s Hudson chip FAB business unit which also produced the StrongARM chip which took hold of the nascent smartphone and Chromebook-like industries, but of course Intel sold it off because Microsoft wasn’t interested in that BS.) Intel then killed off their own amazing 432-chip (a potential VAX killer) and formally released the Alpha tech from DEC inside of Itanium, which sort of flopped around like a dying fish as the whole PC-monopoly and security nightmare began. The DEC operating system, carefully evolved by scientists over 30 years, was first ported to Alpha, then Itanium before DEC itself wound up merged with its historic competitors that had their own 30 year old proprietary software and DEC’s system did not survive. They kept their foot on the throat of anyone who would port it to the Pentium chips long enough to make sure it never took off. Seeing it come back on rPi (which is a descendant of StrongARM) is so ironic. Maybe we could get all the crazies out there still working on Plan9 and other obscure systems to merge Android infrastructure with VAX/VMS and...
    - pfdietz 6y ago
      > Then Sun Microsystems declared bankruptcy so it could pivot off of 680x0 tech (that was no match for the VAX) and onto SPARC. What? Is that a figurative use of the word "bankruptcy"?
      - vaxman 6y ago
        No, it was actual bankruptcy (Chapter 11, Holloween 1985..pre IPO). SPARC really hurt DEC. Until that point none of the half-dozen Unix-based platforms could offer enough performance to offset the disadvantage of its architecture and relative lack of standards.
- fortran77 6y ago
  I built a PiDP-11 and am having a blast with it. It was the first computer, ever, that I used back in 1977 or so.
  - vaxman 6y ago
    Yer screen name is awesome. Highly recommend rolling your own home automation to the PDP11 and writing the control software in FORTRAN-IV (not sure if FORTRAN-77 runs on PDP11...the DEC version was called VAX FORTRAN...probably was back ported to the 11 though, since those were commonly used for interfacing with industrial machinery via GPIB/IEEE488 and relaying back to the VAX via DECnet, XNS/ITP, etc). You could do the same thing, replacing the VAX part with an rPi4 but I wouldn't use TCP.IP or WiFi or Zigbee or any of that garbage modern tech :)
acd 6y ago
Very fun to use the emulator! It’s the first time I got to try UNIX on Pdp11. Thanks! Unix history which includes Dec PDP 11. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Unix https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Unix
ralphc 6y ago
Maybe I'm an idiot, but I'm not seeing any links to the JavaScript emulator source code?
- paulnank 6y ago
  Source files can be found at https://github.com/paulnank/nankervis-pdp11-js https://github.com/paulnank/nankervis-pdp11-js

56 points by threeme3 6y ago

pulls out trusty "mov -(pc), -(pc)" to see if it works ....

A fun project I finished a few months ago was building a PiDP-11 kit: https://obsolescence.wixsite.com/obsolescence/pidp-11 https://obsolescence.wixsite.com/obsolescence/pidp-11 The creator did an amazing job on this kit and it looks great in my study!

em500 6y ago
Neat. This VAX-11/780 kit is also great: https://vxcompany.com/2016/02/13/a-working-vax-11780-revisited https://vxcompany.com/2016/02/13/a-working-vax-11780-revisit...
- 2sk21 6y ago
  That’s amazing. I learnt programming on a VAX 11/750 so this gave me an acute nostalgia attack
  - vaxman 6y ago
    Just want to point out that the 11/750 was newer than the OG 11/780 and 11/782. Then came the 11/730 and eventually the MicroVax (based on the 78032 microprocessor that was hardware compatible with 68000 bus systems, fabricated at DEC’s famed Hudson plant)...then they went on to release 8000, 6000, 9000 and 10000 series while getting what would become Alpha out the door. Before Bill Gates hired David Cutler away from DEC and created the Windows dystopia, we had the finest hardware, operating systems and applications that money could buy (maybe with the exception of our database management systems lol).
    - icedchai 6y ago
      DEC was definitely the pride of the New England tech scene for most of the 80's and 90's. One of the first multiuser systems I worked with was a VAX 11/730 running VMS. However, to say they had the "finest operating systems" is a bit of an exaggeration. You ever use Ultrix? It paled in comparison to SunOS. Example: it didn't even support shared libraries, which was a big deal with small disks.
      - guenthert 6y ago
        Did SunOS (before 5, i.e. BSD based) or did it come with Solaris (SunOS 5, SystemV based)? I honestly don't remember. I do remember that Interactive Unix around '92 (later bought by SUN to enhance their x86 port) did not support shared libraries, when Linux did. And yes, that was a big deal back then. EDIT: http://iraf.noao.edu/docs/src/dosf/unixsmg-N-3.2.html http://iraf.noao.edu/docs/src/dosf/unixsmg-N-3.2.html indicates that BSD based SunOS did offer shared libraries (at least late in its live, as early on it was a 3rd party project to add those: https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/0433/bb8fb59cc457b74b3f8ad010f216309b6154.pdf https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/0433/bb8fb59cc457b74b3f8ad0...).
        icedchai 6y ago
        I remember shared libraries on SunOS 4.x. SunOS 4.x was retroactively renamed to Solaris 1 sometime around the first Solaris 2 (SunOS 5.x) release. I ran it on both a Sun 3/60 and a Sparc. Up until Solaris 2.4 or so, most folks still preferred the older SunOS.
      - vaxman 6y ago
        Ultrix WAS DEFINITELY trash —I didn’t even consider it a “DEC” operating system (was referring to VMS, RSX, RT11, VAXeln, RSTS/E, TOPS). You have to realize that Ultrix was despised by virtually (hah) the entire organization. It was a product of DECWRL in Palo Alto for use in situations where the customer required Unix due to edict or integration, much like Apple A/UX and many others.
        6y ago
- cereal_console 6y ago
  Wow! Great project! Added to my to-do list.
- vaxman 6y ago
  Read his site and want to point out for the younglings that even as far back as 1984, DEC was showing slides at DECUS that projected 1 BIPS performance from future models. They went into intricate detail explaining how their multi-stage pipelining and other cooling techniques would scale. Then Sun Microsystems declared bankruptcy so it could pivot off of 680x0 tech (that was no match for the VAX) and onto SPARC. (Trump’s companies and many others used the same technique.) That prompted DEC to begin developing what would become Alpha whose architecture was reportedly stolen by Intel while being shopped to them as a potential second source supplier, then misappropriated into Pentium Pro/II/III/IV models which all but killed the market for minicomputers from DEC (there was a legal settlement that resulted in Intel buying DEC’s Hudson chip FAB business unit which also produced the StrongARM chip which took hold of the nascent smartphone and Chromebook-like industries, but of course Intel sold it off because Microsoft wasn’t interested in that BS.) Intel then killed off their own amazing 432-chip (a potential VAX killer) and formally released the Alpha tech from DEC inside of Itanium, which sort of flopped around like a dying fish as the whole PC-monopoly and security nightmare began. The DEC operating system, carefully evolved by scientists over 30 years, was first ported to Alpha, then Itanium before DEC itself wound up merged with its historic competitors that had their own 30 year old proprietary software and DEC’s system did not survive. They kept their foot on the throat of anyone who would port it to the Pentium chips long enough to make sure it never took off. Seeing it come back on rPi (which is a descendant of StrongARM) is so ironic. Maybe we could get all the crazies out there still working on Plan9 and other obscure systems to merge Android infrastructure with VAX/VMS and...
  - pfdietz 6y ago
    > Then Sun Microsystems declared bankruptcy so it could pivot off of 680x0 tech (that was no match for the VAX) and onto SPARC. What? Is that a figurative use of the word "bankruptcy"?
    - vaxman 6y ago
      No, it was actual bankruptcy (Chapter 11, Holloween 1985..pre IPO). SPARC really hurt DEC. Until that point none of the half-dozen Unix-based platforms could offer enough performance to offset the disadvantage of its architecture and relative lack of standards.
fortran77 6y ago
I built a PiDP-11 and am having a blast with it. It was the first computer, ever, that I used back in 1977 or so.
- vaxman 6y ago
  Yer screen name is awesome. Highly recommend rolling your own home automation to the PDP11 and writing the control software in FORTRAN-IV (not sure if FORTRAN-77 runs on PDP11...the DEC version was called VAX FORTRAN...probably was back ported to the 11 though, since those were commonly used for interfacing with industrial machinery via GPIB/IEEE488 and relaying back to the VAX via DECnet, XNS/ITP, etc). You could do the same thing, replacing the VAX part with an rPi4 but I wouldn't use TCP.IP or WiFi or Zigbee or any of that garbage modern tech :)

acd 6y ago

Very fun to use the emulator! It’s the first time I got to try UNIX on Pdp11. Thanks! Unix history which includes Dec PDP 11. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Unix https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Unix

ralphc 6y ago

Maybe I'm an idiot, but I'm not seeing any links to the JavaScript emulator source code?

paulnank 6y ago
Source files can be found at https://github.com/paulnank/nankervis-pdp11-js https://github.com/paulnank/nankervis-pdp11-js