[pups] PDP-11 / vacuum tube interface

Fred N. van Kempen fred.van.kempen at microwalt.nl
Thu Dec 11 04:09:34 AEST 2008


> (This has got to be the strangest cross-post I've ever done.)
You've got that right :P

> I do sincerely apologize for
> cross-posting, but I am rather younger than either of these
> technologies (vintage: 1984) and this seems like a monumental
> challenge.
Well, several projects can be thought off in this scenario, but
if you want to keep it mildly useful, try to do something with
audio tubes connected to an '11 (OK, here's a spoiler: "you'll
make a PDP11-driven music player using a tube-based audio
backend"), or such.  You could go into analog computing as
well, but that can be kinda hairy.

This more or less only requires building a usable D/A converter
on the '11, which then interfaces to the tubes.  I'd use a DMA-
based 16-bit DA controller.

Cheers,

Fred (smiling @ his nano-11 system running Ultrix, all the size of
      a matchbox..)





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