Don't Nurse Old Hardware - Emulate It

gManZboy writes "Bob Supnik, former team lead for DEC's VAX microprossesor, has an article up on Queue about his Computer History Simulation Project and how emulating old servers may be a better way to keep them running that servicing the physical machines. So how many PDP-11's can you run on a Pentium 4 anyhow?"

Comments

or how many

[Anonymous Coward]

pentium IV's can you emulate on a PowerPC?

I disagree

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

emulating old servers may be a better way to keep them running that servicing the physical machines.

I disagree. It's not the same thing.

-- Signed: your friendly PDP-11 system operator downstairs, 3 years from retirement.

Re:I disagree

[Anonymous Coward]

Totally agreed --

How can you emulate the experience of getting a maintenance notice
in the mail from DEC that included a software patch on DECtape and
explicit instructions on how to patch the hardware via wire-wrap?

Or getting out the oscilloscope to set the baudrate on your PDP-11/05? And then
booting said 11/05 by
1) entering a program in octal via the front panel that is just
good enough to read a bootstrapper from paper tape,
2) jumping to the boostrapper from the front panel thus
3) reading a second boostrapper from paper tape
which in turn has a boostrapper to read from disk,
4) which in turn finally gets around to reading the bootblock
5) which might actually know something about booting RTS from that RK05 or RL10 or what-have-you.

Re:More important question:

[proj_2501]

fold the disk a couple times. duh!

Re:none.

[TWX]

"pdp-11 is much heavier than you think."

Not to anyone who's ever tried to pick one up!

You might be a vax geek if...

[schnits0r]

TOP TEN SIGNS THAT YOU'RE A VAX GEEK

Key traits identifying individuals tendencies towards abnormal preoccupation with VAX computer systems

9. When talking about building software you make reference to
compilation times in weeks and days instead of minutes and seconds.

8. You stopped purchasing new furniture when you realized that
your computers work just as well.

7. Your electricity bill is more than your monthly rent payment.

6. You've been hospitalized with muscle strain injuries after
performing some routine hardware maintenance on your computer.

5. You don't have an SO, but it's okay because your computer keeps
you warm at night.

4. While doing laundry, you occassionaly have a mental lapse and try to
wash your socks and underwear in your 11/750.

3. Friends who visit you want to know why there are old-time movie reels
stuck on your refridgerator(s).

2. Your house is pleasantly warm in the dead of winter, even with the air
conditioning turned all the way up.

1. The lights in your home dim or flicker when you reboot.

0. It doesn't matter to you if someone else's computer is faster because
you know your system could smash theirs flat if it fell over on it.

Re:legal issues?

[meringuoid]

Nintendo owns the rights to "emulation"? Emulating anything?

I think they patented some aspects of emulation, mainly to shut down people selling GBA emus for palmtops.

Given the current state of patent law, chances are that any universal Turing machine now owes Nintendo royalties.

Just a guess ...

[Anonymous Coward]

So how many PDP-11's can you run on a Pentium 4 anyhow?

All of them? ;-)

Re:All Well and good.

[DLWormwood]

Me on my Commodore 64 with my Microbits 300 baud modem (I was the fastest kid on the block. Everyone else had 110 or baudots). It was like NetHack, but in real life. Learned to get in. Learned to navigate. Learned about these great things called directories...

I do not think that word means what you think it means...

Re:My First

[TWX]

"The first laptop I had was a pdp-11"

An LED-screen-based terminal emulator with a 300 baud modem dialing up to the PDP 11 shouldn't really count...