brainwagon

A few years ago, Tom Duff and I each wrote an emulator for the PDP-1 so we could play the original version of Space Wars! I learned a lot about old computers in the week or so it took me to do, and I must admit that I’ve retained a fascination for old computers ever since. Tom mentioned that he has a front panel from an old PDP-11, and has talked about doing a project where he wires the front panel to a more modern machine running a PDP-11 emulator, which seemed like a cool idea. After all, modern computers just don’t have enough blinking lights. Here’s a link to a project which does precisely that using an inexpensive Zilog microcontroller over ethenet. It also includes some links to other similar and interesting projects. Check it out.

Re-animating the PDP-11/70