Most used toys, was Re: The late, great TRS-80

[Allison]

>
>Subject: Re: Most used toys, was Re: The late, great TRS-80
>   From: "Ethan Dicks" <ethan.dicks at gmail.com>
>   Date: Tue, 26 Jun 2007 16:47:18 -0400
>     To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
>
>On 6/26/07, Dave McGuire <mcguire at neurotica.com> wrote:
>>  My most
>> used classic machine at the moment is a PDP-8/m; I've carved out a
>> permanent place for it on my desk.  It contains an RX8E which is
>> connected to a arallel port adapter based on Chuck Dickman's design,
>> which is in turn connected to a small x86 SBC running Linux to give
>> the 8/m a disk subsystem.
>
>Interesting way to do it.  How "based on" is it?  I know of Chuck's
>parallel port adapter, but I'm curious how you've tweaked it.

I'm curious too.

>
>Is the SBC tucked into the /m or is it external?  Does the SBC host
>your disk images locally, or over a network?
>
>Given that an RX8E is a PIO device, it makes me think that it wouldn't
>be that hard to come up with an OS/8 handler to treat the 12-bit-input
>and output ports on a DKC8AA as a disk interface to an external,
>modern machine.  It doesn't help -8/e/f/m owners much, but the DKC8AA
>was a standard peripheral on the -8/a, and normally, unless one is
>using the output port as a printer port, unused.

I'm sure that will work, many of the OS/8 devices are simple enough
and the drivers are small. It would be a great way to get a "disk" on
my 8f.


Allison

>Much to think about there...
>
>-ethan