RF08/RS08 emulation

[Ethan Dicks]

On Thu, Aug 07, 2008 at 03:29:01PM -0700, Vincent Slyngstad wrote:
> It is a little.  The 8"x11" restriction is really just to keep the 
> prototype cost low for a particular board shop.  If that or the 
> 10mil restriction were relaxed, things would get easier.

Gotcha.
 
> Of course it would also be fairly easy to redo the thing with 
> GALs instead of TTL, which should also make it easier to fit 
> things in, but would require me to program parts.
 
Sure.  I myself have a couple of burners and more than a handful
of 16V8s and 22V10s, so _I_ wouldn't mind a GAL-inclusive design,
but there is something neat about an all-TTL design replacing
and upgrading a FLIP-CHIP disk - you can get a probe in there and
see *exactly* what's going on.

I forget... does a real RF08 have a KM11 port?  I happen to
have a couple of as-yet-unassembled modern replicas, but I
got them to plug into my RK-11C and PDP-11/20 (and probably
an RX01 just to watch it blink), so they'll get use, but I
just don't remember about the RF08.

> 
> The RX8 will go in the middle of a bus, and even has a provision for a 
> G717 equivalent bus terminator, in the form of an optional SIL resistor 
> pack.

Thanks for the reminder - sounds like a very workable combination.

Oh... the RF08 is a databreak device - I think that would mean that
I'd need one more module for OMNIBUS testing, but I do have the
required M-series logic to fit that into the -8/L.

>  Real drivers, too.  Of course, being known not to work as yet, 
> I doubt anyone will be rushing out to build it :-(.

Right... I _am_ still interested in getting it working, but to be quite
honest, it'll be 6 months until I could even start to look at it - gotta
get home first.

-ethan

-- 
Ethan Dicks, A-333-S     Current South Pole Weather at  8-Aug-2008 at 04:20 Z
South Pole Station
PSC 468 Box 400       Temp  -50.4 F (-45.8 C)   Windchill   -88.3 F (-66.8 C)
APO AP 96598          Wind   17.5 kts Grid 13   Barometer 682.5 mb (10534 ft)

Ethan.Dicks at usap.gov            http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html