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Rebuilding the PDP-11/70 with a Raspberry Pi (wixsite.com)
"You could look at this as a smallish PDP-11/70, built with modern parts," Oscar Vermeulen writes on his site. "Or alternatively, and equally valid, as a fancy front panel case for a Raspberry Pi."
Long-time Slashdot reader cptnapalm writes: Oscar Vermeulen's PiDP-11 front panel, modeling a PDP-11/70 in all its colorful glory, has been released to beta testers. This is Mr. Vermeulen's second DEC front panel; his PiDP-8 was released a few years ago. The PiDP-11 panel is designed to work with a Raspberry Pi running simh or, possibly, a FPGA implementation of the Digital Equipment Corporation PDP-11... In addition to the front panel with its switches and blinkenlights, also included is a prototyping area for the possibility of adding new hardware...
UNIX and later BSD were developed on the PDP-11, including both the creation of the C language, the pipe concept and the text editor vi.
Long-time Slashdot reader cptnapalm writes: Oscar Vermeulen's PiDP-11 front panel, modeling a PDP-11/70 in all its colorful glory, has been released to beta testers. This is Mr. Vermeulen's second DEC front panel; his PiDP-8 was released a few years ago. The PiDP-11 panel is designed to work with a Raspberry Pi running simh or, possibly, a FPGA implementation of the Digital Equipment Corporation PDP-11... In addition to the front panel with its switches and blinkenlights, also included is a prototyping area for the possibility of adding new hardware...
UNIX and later BSD were developed on the PDP-11, including both the creation of the C language, the pipe concept and the text editor vi.
I'm always amazed at what people use a Pi for. While bad mouthed for it's limitations it seems the Swiss Knife of tiny SBC devices.
That's putting a fancy front on an emulator. If you're rebuilding, you better get down there and wrap some wires, tinkerer.
Honestly, it's a cool thing. But it's not rebuilding. It's emulating.
This article is not about the emulator. That's been around for a while.
This is about reproducing the physical hardware - the switches and lights and all that. You say "that's not rebuilding. That's putting a fancy front on" - you realize one has to design and build the "fancy front" before putting it on, right?