{"id":831,"date":"2019-11-06T20:43:12","date_gmt":"2019-11-06T20:43:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pdp2011.sytse.net\/wordpress\/?p=831"},"modified":"2019-11-06T20:43:12","modified_gmt":"2019-11-06T20:43:12","slug":"the-smallest-pdp-11-ever","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pdp2011.sytse.net\/wordpress\/the-smallest-pdp-11-ever\/","title":{"rendered":"The smallest PDP-11 ever!"},"content":{"rendered":"

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\n62.5 by 25mm. That is how big the smallest ever PDP-11 system is, based on the CYC1000 FPGA board from Trenz Electronic. It’s not a small PDP-11 though – it is a full PDP-11\/70 with PiDP11 front panel console, RH70+RP06 disk, DEUNA ethernet controller, and two serial ports. Ok, it is a bit bigger if you connect all that, but still smaller than all the other boards I’ve worked on so far.
\nThe FPGA is Altera\/Intel’s latest generation Cyclone, and it is pretty fast – it runs the CPU of the PDP2011 at 12Mhz. There is an FTDI chip that is used for programming the board; it can be used as a console port as well. And a 8Mbyte SDRAM chip, 8 leds, two really tiny buttons, a 2×6 pin row suited for connecting PMODs … exactly what we need to run PDP2011 on!
\nTo make connecting the PiDP11 front panel easier, I have designed a ‘shim’, a small board – also 62.5 by 25mm – to be mounted under the FPGA board. It maps the GPIOs to the side of the FPGA board to a 40 pin header for the PiDP11 panel, and a 2×6 pin header for an extra serial port.
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\nIf soldered together, it is small enough that the whole thing will nicely fit into the PiDP11 case, and the back panel will still fit. I don’t think that will be the case if the two are connected with sockets… but, since the CYC1000 is also the cheapest board I’ve seen so far, I don’t think sockets are really needed.
\nIn the next weeks, I will write up a howto for the boards, and add the bitstreams for the FPGA to the download page. I haven’t made up my mind if I will be selling the shim (maybe even as a kit with all the headers you’d need) or if I will just publish the gerbers so everyone that wants one can order from their favourite PCB shop themselves. If you’re interested in either option, let me know – that’ll help me make up my mind!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

62.5 by 25mm. That is how big the smallest ever PDP-11 system is, based on the CYC1000 FPGA board from Trenz Electronic. It’s not a small PDP-11 though – it is a full PDP-11\/70 with PiDP11 front panel console, RH70+RP06 disk, DEUNA ethernet controller, and two serial ports. Ok, it is a bit bigger if […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-831","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-boards","missing-thumbnail"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pdp2011.sytse.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/831","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pdp2011.sytse.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pdp2011.sytse.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pdp2011.sytse.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pdp2011.sytse.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=831"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pdp2011.sytse.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/831\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pdp2011.sytse.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=831"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pdp2011.sytse.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=831"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pdp2011.sytse.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=831"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}