QSIC update

Hey, all, a quick update on recent progress. I now have a working prototype to match Dave's (although he's still doing all the real work), and we've made a minor improvement in them (re-wired things so we can use shorter cables to the FPGA daughter-card). I got my indicator panel working, it

Re: QSIC update - v6 Unix boots and runs

> On Jan 29, 2018, at 6:03 PM, Noel Chiappa via cctalk > wrote: > > ... >> (actually, this should work with Q18 QBUS systems as well) > > Goodness, never thought of that. Hmmm.. it's probably enough hassle to mod > the software (who ever heard of a 'QBUS map' on a QBUS

Re: QSIC update - v6 Unix boots and runs

> From: David Bridgham > Our plan is to produce a Unibus board as well, we just chose the QBUS > first. For no particularly strong reasons; I had working QBUS machines, and prototyping cards, etc, etc. > (actually, this should work with Q18 QBUS systems as well) Goodness,

Re: QSIC update - v6 Unix boots and runs

> That sounds pretty awesome. Good job there! Thanks.  Feeling good today after a bit of frustration with development not going faster. > Do you know how hard it would be to take this design and make a UNIBUS > version? I have an 11/34 languishing under the bench in my hardware > lab and one

Re: QSIC update - v6 Unix boots and runs

On Mon, 2018-01-29 at 16:06 -0500, David Bridgham via cctalk wrote: > For those of you who are following along with our QSIC project, today > we > booted v6 Unix successfully for the first time.  We'd first tried > this a > week or two back but discovered that Unix does use partial block > reads >

Re: QSIC update - v6 Unix boots and runs

> FWIW, so does RT11, and in the case of writes, it requires the rest of the > block to be zero-filled. Not everything depends on this, but some parts do; > I think Fortran is one. I did implement that too.  Unix doesn't need it but I had to fill the block with something and it wasn't that

Re: QSIC update - v6 Unix boots and runs

> On Jan 29, 2018, at 4:06 PM, David Bridgham via cctalk > wrote: > > For those of you who are following along with our QSIC project, today we > booted v6 Unix successfully for the first time. We'd first tried this a > week or two back but discovered that Unix does use

Re: QSIC update - v6 Unix boots and runs

> From: David Bridgham > today we booted v6 Unix successfully for the first time. As in, the OS image was loaded from the SD card, then started up using only the SD card for 'disk'. So this is a pretty major milestone. It's been a long road (I just looked, and we started on this in the

QSIC update - v6 Unix boots and runs

For those of you who are following along with our QSIC project, today we booted v6 Unix successfully for the first time.  We'd first tried this a week or two back but discovered that Unix does use partial block reads and writes after all and I hadn't implemented those yet.  We're running this on

Re: QSIC update and request

On 1/2/18 15:38, Toby Thain via cctalk wrote: > Err.. could be my mistake... I meant wherever you posted your last > technical note about QBus quirks. (I didn't look up the reference) Oh, that paper I wrote about how bus arbitration works on the Unibus and QBUS.  I'd thought of it as just a way

Re: QSIC update and request

On 2018-01-02 3:00 PM, David Bridgham via cctalk wrote: > On 01/02/2018 02:05 PM, Toby Thain via cctalk wrote: > >>> Oh, I hadn't thought of Toby possibly meaning that.  Yeah, I'm unlikely >>> to write up much documentation on the internals of the QSIC for people >>> who want to add other

Re: QSIC update and request

On 01/02/2018 02:05 PM, Toby Thain via cctalk wrote: >> Oh, I hadn't thought of Toby possibly meaning that.  Yeah, I'm unlikely >> to write up much documentation on the internals of the QSIC for people >> who want to add other devices.  However, not only will the source be > Yes, that's what I

Re: QSIC update and request

On 2018-01-02 1:17 PM, David Bridgham via cctalk wrote: > On 01/02/2018 01:13 PM, Noel Chiappa via cctalk wrote: > > >> If you mean the 'software' for additional controllers - that would be a _lot_ >> harder (plus to which it's an entirely different tool-chain, yadda-yadda). >> 'Use the source,

Re: QSIC update and request

On 01/02/2018 01:13 PM, Noel Chiappa via cctalk wrote: > If you mean the 'software' for additional controllers - that would be a _lot_ > harder (plus to which it's an entirely different tool-chain, yadda-yadda). > 'Use the source, Luke!', I'm probably afraid... Oh, I hadn't thought of Toby

Re: QSIC update and request

> From: Toby Thain > If the documentation is good enough, people in the community will be > able to provide the software. You mean, host drivers? Yeah, that documentation will be pretty trivial: 'there's this extra register, just like the one in the RLV12; the top 6 bits of the DMA

Re: QSIC update and request

On 01/02/2018 12:45 PM, Toby Thain via cctalk wrote: > If the documentation is good enough, people in the community will be > able to provide the software. The quick answer is that it's pretty simple.  We take the cylinder/head/sector addresses and consider them a Linear Block Address.  Then we

Re: QSIC update and request

On 2018-01-02 9:01 AM, Noel Chiappa via cctalk wrote: > > From: Mark J. Blair > > > I wonder if it might also be useful in any of the QBUS MicroVAXen? > > Hardwarewise, it should be fine. Softwarewise... well... > ... > Anyway, you can see where this is going. For people who can tweak

Re: QSIC update and request

> From: Mark J. Blair > I wonder if it might also be useful in any of the QBUS MicroVAXen? Hardwarewise, it should be fine. Softwarewise... well... The issue is that we're currently only planning to emulate the RK11 and RP11, because we're not up for the hassle involved in emulating

Re: QSIC update and request

This looks pretty interesting! I think I've managed to miss previous discussion of it. I wonder if it might also be useful in any of the QBUS MicroVAXen? -- Mark J. Blair, NF6X http://www.nf6x.net/

Re: QSIC update and request

> From: David Bridgham > I could ask for a lot more really but that's pretty good. IMO we're 'over the hump' on the prototype phase of the project. The complete QBUS interface (including DMA and interrupts) are done, and very thoroughly tested, and now we have the SD interface up and

QSIC update and request

Even though I've been quiet, I have been making slow progress on the QSIC in the background.  For those who've forgotten what the QSIC project is about, here's the description: http://pdp10.froghouse.org/qsic/html/overview.html We've been working away on getting communications with the SD card

QSIC Update

It's been a while since I've sent an update on the QSIC project and since work is currently on-hold while I'm in Alaska for my summer job, this is a good time. With the QBUS protocol pieces all working from the previous winter, last winter's work was to get some sort of storage medium working.

Re: QSIC update

> From: Henk Gooijen >> He's now starting in on interrupt cycles; once those work, he >> effectively has emulation of a minimal small RK > sounds very good - nice progress! Interrupts are now working, and as of yesterday (when I finally managed to get all the bugs out of my

Re: QSIC update

-Oorspronkelijk bericht- From: Noel Chiappa Sent: Saturday, March 05, 2016 2:01 PM To: cctalk@classiccmp.org Cc: j...@mercury.lcs.mit.edu Subject: Re: QSIC update > So here's a quick update on where Dave Bridgham and I are with the > QSIC ... We have the first of two wir

Re: QSIC update

> So here's a quick update on where Dave Bridgham and I are with the > QSIC ... We have the first of two wire-wrap prototype QBUS motherboards > more or less (see below) done .. the hardware is 'mostly' working; most > of the work from here on out will be FPGA, etc, programming.

Re: QSIC update

> From: Al Kossow > Have you guys thought about a panel that would connect to the KM11 > connector slots of real rk11/tc11 controllers? Umm, Guy sells KM11 clones? (I just bought a pair, they look really nice.) Or did you mean something else? Speaking of things Guy has, Dave is

Re: QSIC update

On 2/15/16 5:05 AM, Noel Chiappa wrote: Anyway, we think getting slave cycles working was a major milestone (for a couple of software guys :-) yay! Have you guys thought about a panel that would connect to the KM11 connector slots of real rk11/tc11 controllers? At one point, I thought about

QSIC update

So here's a quick update on where Dave Bridgham and I are with the QSIC, since I think we have reached a significant milestone. We have the first of two wire-wrap prototype QBUS motherboards more or less (see below) done, and working to do slave cycles on the QBUS. (I.e. we implemented a simple