5 ms·

How long till someone ports NetBSD to it now that it’s more viable? There was work in the past: http://www.jp.netbsd.org/ports/pdp10/ http://www.jp.netbsd.org/

How long till someone ports NetBSD to it now that it’s more viable? There was work in the past: http://www.jp.netbsd.org/ports/pdp10/ http://www.jp.netbsd.org/ports/pdp10/

rnewme 2y ago
Sadly it's just RPI inside
- Pet_Ant 2y ago
  Does that matter? As long as system level instructions are emulated. I’m sure you could also whip up an FPGA if you wanted to. http://pdp10.froghouse.org/ http://pdp10.froghouse.org/ http://www.fpgaretrocomputing.org/pdp10x/ http://www.fpgaretrocomputing.org/pdp10x/ https://github.com/KS10FPGA/KS10FPGA https://github.com/KS10FPGA/KS10FPGA I haven’t checked, but I’m fairly certain it’s too big for Tiny Tapeout, so ASIC is out of the question unless you want to crowd source an older geometry.
  - Taniwha 2y ago
    TT supports multi block projects now, might be doable
- boznz 2y ago
  It could be almost any $0.50 microprocessor from 2024 and still have more vastly horsepower than any PDP8 ever had.
  - shrubble 2y ago
    The PDP10 was a 36-bit CPU with up to a few MIPS of compute power, however.
- larsbrinkhoff 2y ago
  If you're going to make flip chips, let me know.
  - rnewme 2y ago
    Oh I would love that so much, but missus already has issue with how I spent what little of my free time I have...
Suzuran 2y ago
The problem is that the PDP-10 is really unsuited to running C. It doesn't use 8-bit bytes and doesn't have a native "byte" datatype, just words and halfwords. There are byte instructions, but you have to construct a "byte pointer" to use them, which is a control word describing bytes of arbitrary size. The PDP-10 also has no single dedicated stack pointer, any AC except for the program counter can be used as a stack pointer, to its own independent stack if you want.
- larsbrinkhoff 2y ago
  No dedicated stack pointer isn't much of a problem. Stack growing up might be.
  - Pet_Ant 2y ago
    Isn't stack direction an ABI convention rather than language or processor limit? I mean if you are trying to run existing PDP-10 binaries (I don't know of any that are publicly available), sure. But just to get to the point that you are running bash and serving and HTML Hello World from Apache, it shouldn't be an issue. > 8-bit bytes Doesn't the C standard just specify the minimum range of datatypes, and the max? Don't know if you can tell the size of actual bit without triggering UBI. (obviously not a C programmer)
    - Suzuran 2y ago
      The standard specifies that you must have an independently addressable unit of storage that corresponds to the basic character set. The PDP-10 does not have this.
      - Pet_Ant 2y ago
        Interesting. Found this story: https://stackoverflow.com/a/8061758/254477 https://stackoverflow.com/a/8061758/254477 So, it has been ported to some weird platforms.
        2y ago

How long till someone ports NetBSD to it now that it’s more viable? There was work in the past: http://www.jp.netbsd.org/ports/pdp10/ http://www.jp.netbsd.org/ports/pdp10/

rnewme 2y ago

Sadly it's just RPI inside

Pet_Ant 2y ago
Does that matter? As long as system level instructions are emulated. I’m sure you could also whip up an FPGA if you wanted to. http://pdp10.froghouse.org/ http://pdp10.froghouse.org/ http://www.fpgaretrocomputing.org/pdp10x/ http://www.fpgaretrocomputing.org/pdp10x/ https://github.com/KS10FPGA/KS10FPGA https://github.com/KS10FPGA/KS10FPGA I haven’t checked, but I’m fairly certain it’s too big for Tiny Tapeout, so ASIC is out of the question unless you want to crowd source an older geometry.
- Taniwha 2y ago
  TT supports multi block projects now, might be doable
boznz 2y ago
It could be almost any $0.50 microprocessor from 2024 and still have more vastly horsepower than any PDP8 ever had.
- shrubble 2y ago
  The PDP10 was a 36-bit CPU with up to a few MIPS of compute power, however.
larsbrinkhoff 2y ago
If you're going to make flip chips, let me know.
- rnewme 2y ago
  Oh I would love that so much, but missus already has issue with how I spent what little of my free time I have...

Suzuran 2y ago

The problem is that the PDP-10 is really unsuited to running C. It doesn't use 8-bit bytes and doesn't have a native "byte" datatype, just words and halfwords. There are byte instructions, but you have to construct a "byte pointer" to use them, which is a control word describing bytes of arbitrary size. The PDP-10 also has no single dedicated stack pointer, any AC except for the program counter can be used as a stack pointer, to its own independent stack if you want.

larsbrinkhoff 2y ago
No dedicated stack pointer isn't much of a problem. Stack growing up might be.
- Pet_Ant 2y ago
  Isn't stack direction an ABI convention rather than language or processor limit? I mean if you are trying to run existing PDP-10 binaries (I don't know of any that are publicly available), sure. But just to get to the point that you are running bash and serving and HTML Hello World from Apache, it shouldn't be an issue. > 8-bit bytes Doesn't the C standard just specify the minimum range of datatypes, and the max? Don't know if you can tell the size of actual bit without triggering UBI. (obviously not a C programmer)
  - Suzuran 2y ago
    The standard specifies that you must have an independently addressable unit of storage that corresponds to the basic character set. The PDP-10 does not have this.
    - Pet_Ant 2y ago
      Interesting. Found this story: https://stackoverflow.com/a/8061758/254477 https://stackoverflow.com/a/8061758/254477 So, it has been ported to some weird platforms.
      - 2y ago