[Simh] Hardware Requirements

[Henk Gooijen]

From: "Pontus Pihlgren" <pontus at Update.UU.SE>
Sent: Tuesday, December 07, 2010 4:05 PM
To: "Ken Cornetet" <Ken.Cornetet at kimball.com>
Cc: <simh at trailing-edge.com>
Subject: Re: [Simh] Hardware Requirements

> On Tue, Dec 07, 2010 at 09:21:43AM -0500, Ken Cornetet wrote:
>> Keep in mind that the printer port on regular old PCs can be used for a 
>> few lines of general input and output. I used to do this on a regular 
>> basis back in the DOS days. Looks easy under linux too: 
>> http://www.faqs.org/docs/Linux-mini/IO-Port-Programming.html
>
> It's a solution I'm considering, but I have a concern. Besides the
> PDP-15 panel I also have a PDP-12 panel. The PDP-12 panel has arround
> 120 lights. So while I think it will be possible to control them by
> cascading shift registers, I'm worried it will be to slow.
>
> Having more I/O pins and narrower shift registers would speed things up.
>
> I would love to be proven wrong here, in which case I can dig out a
> Pentium III with parallel port and start experimenting.
>
> - Pontus.

Hi Pontus,
Vince and I developed the "Blinkenlight" boards some years ago.
It uses a "Core"  board with 6809 CPU and an I/O Board that has
64 digital outputs (8 LS374 latches) and 64 digital inputs (8 LS373).
It is capable of cascading up to 6 I/O Boards to one Core Board.

But the design is from 2004 or so ... have a look at this:
http://www.j-hoppe.de/PDP-11/PDP-11_70_console_panel/11_70_panel_-_Physical/11_70_panel_-_physical.html

- Henk.