WTB: DEC M863 DR8-E Parallel I/O Board

[antiquekid3]

I've got a project in mind for a parallel I/O board for the PDP-8/E, as well as wanting to make a copy of the board using the prototyping space on the 32kW Omnibus NVRAM board that Vince produced a few months ago. If anyone has one they'd like to part with, please PM me and perhaps we can come to some arrangement. I will look through my stash of Omnibus cards and see if we can work out a trade, if that is more appealing than money. Thanks, and Happy Thanksgiving!

Kyle

 

[m_thompson]

I am just starting a project of connecting an Actel SmartFusion FPGA to the Omnibus. With a combination of a Linux application running in the FPGA, a Linux device driver, and the FPGA circuitry it can emulate any Omnibus device or peripheral.

 

[antiquekid3]

Sounds like a great project. I've got plans to get an STM32F4 connected to the Omnibus to host my rewritten SerialDisk (or ParallelDisk?) for faster disk transfers without the hassle of running wires out to a Raspberry Pi or other computer. Once I have that connected, emulating other devices or peripherals would be fairly straightforward. Have a Xilinx Zynq on board would be *really* cool, since it has some FPGA fabric built in, on top of being a powerful dual-core ARM CPU. Might be overkill, but they're pretty cheap and would make for a simple board design.

 

[Ingo]

Hi Kyle,

I am a new proud owner of a PDP-8/a. I am looking for a M863, how far has your project progressed? BTW I am also in Alabama near Tuscaloosa.

Thanks Ingo.