[Simh] 'Building' a PDP-11

[Mark Benson]

Hi,

I'm trying to bootstrap a 'simple' PDP-11 for use with RSX-11M Plus 4.2 and eventually DECnet and wondered if anyone had a hardware setup recommendation for the SIMH simulator.

I am not after a large plethora of devices. A lot of the 'peripherals', like the punch tape reader/punch, various cartridge drives, terminal multiplexers etc,  (which are fascinating real hardware) seem redundant for me as I am not building an environment for a particular application or environment, I intend to use it to run some languages and talk to my VAX and Alpha but that's more-or-less it.

I am also confused as to wether to use a QBus or UNIBUS machine. The UNIBUS machines seem more popular, and the XU UNIBUS ethernet controller has a driver in the 11M Plus SYSGEN that the Q-Bus controller does not have.

Is there a 'real' world machine that is fairly basic that I could use to bas my simulation on? Maybe an 11/83 or 11/84? About the only specification I currently need is a TK50 tape drive to read the install tape and a hard drive (an RQ is preferable so I can transfer the images tot he VAX emulator if needed and that's possible?) but that aside I'm otherwise open to suggestions.

Thirdly I'd like to attach a terminal to a telnet port on the host computer too, if possible, as I'm aware that unlike a VAX running VMS 7.3 I am unlikely to be able to use telnet into a TCP/IP stack?

Aside from the actual simulations this has been a very interesting voyage through specs, manuals, pictures and even the odd video of these crazy old beasts. While I can't see myself owning a PDP-11 I am keen to at least experience the use of RSX-11M to see what they were like.

Thanks for any help :)

-- 
Mark Benson

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