From - Thu May 18 20:02:09 2000
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Newsgroups: alt.sys.pdp10,alt.folklore.computers,comp.org.decus,comp.emulators.misc
Subject: Re: PDP-10 Emulator
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From: falconer@best.com (Edward A. Falk)
Date: 04 May 2000 02:07:31 GMT
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In article <39105E1C.6DC3E519@trailing-edge.com>,
Tim Shoppa  <shoppa@trailing-edge.com> wrote:
>Edward A. Falk wrote:
>> Part of the problem is that it's nearly impossible to get the
>> documentation.
>
>Actually, it's not that bad.  Eric Smith has several of the relevant
>manuals online at http://www.36bit.org/dec/manual/ , most
>notably the "DECsystem-10/DECSYSTEM-20 Processor Reference
>Manual".  This is a big win.

Egads.  Scanned images of pages.  Yikes.

Still, it's a huge win.  This must have been added since the
last time I browsed the 36bit.org homepage.

Does it include peripheral documentation?


>It's complicated for at least some of the PDP-10's by the presence
>of loadable microcode.

Ouch.


>Even more complicated for the PDP-10's with loadable microcode because
>most of the microcode versions have subtle bugs, some of which are
>used by the software to identify the CPU type :-).

Double ouch.


I remember the pdp-10's in the old MIT AI lab.  The hackers in
the lab had extended the instruction sets of some of the machines.

They had a programming contest once (I think it was factoring huge
numbers or looking for Mersenne primes or some such) and someone
asked if they could use microcode in the contest.  The answer
was something like "no -- what next; allow wire-wrap?"


I don't suppose emulating the KL-Udge would be a good idea either.

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