PDP-6 Emulator and Verilog Simulation
This project aims to revive the PDP-6 (and later PDP-10) computers by DEC.
I started by writing a very low level emulator in C based on the schematics. Later I also wrote an accurate verilog simulation that also works on an FPGA.
Both are driven by a virtual front panel but the plan is to create a replica of the original panel.
The maintenance manual has flow charts, schematics and explanations: Volume1 Volume2
C Emulator
The code is more or less a transcription of the schematics into C.
This means you will not understand it unless you're familiar with the maintenance manual.
Pulses are represented as functions, when a pulse triggers another pulse
it does so by the pulse function which queues a pulse in a list
of pulses that are to happen, sorted chronologically.
Between pulses that happen at different times
various things are done like checking external pulses and advancing the
simulation state.
The timing is not yet 100% accurate but it's pretty close.
Building
The supplied makefile assumes gcc (there are flags to silence some stupid warnings). Otherwise you need SDL and pthread.
Running
The cpu (apr), console tty, paper tape and punch, the data control and DECtape are implemented. 340 display is also sort of working. The panel is missing the repeat delay knobs, but the functionality is implemented.
Verilog Simulation
The verilog code is a very accurate transcription of the schematics as well. Since the real machine is asynchronous I had to pull some tricks to make it work on an FPGA. The real machine uses delays that are triggered by pulses and output another pulse after some time. Instead of pulses I use clock enables, and delays are implemented by a counter synchronized to the 50MHz system clock.
FPGA
I'm using a DE0-Nano-SoC with has an ARM hps connected to the Cyclone V FPGA. On the ARM side runs fe6 (a DDT-like interface) which communicates with the FPGA through memory mapped IO registers. The quartus project is not yet part of this repo but the important modules are in the verilog directory.
File tree
NB: not up to date
emu the C emulator
emu/main_panel.c main file for emulator with panel simulation
emu/main_serial.c main file for emulator with panel over serial line
emu/emu.c top level emulator code
emu/cmd.c command line interface
emu/apr.c Arithmetic Processor 166 emulation
emu/mem.c core and fast memory emulation
emu/tty.c Teleprinter 626 emulator
emu/pt.c Paper tape reader 760 and punch 761 emulation
emu/dc.c Data Control 136 emulation
emu/dt.c DECtape 551 and 555 emulation
emu/netmem.c network protocol for shared memory
emu/util.c various utility functions
emu/util.h
emu/test_*.c test code, not too important anymore
emu/pdp6.h main header
emu/args.h argument parsing
emu/elements.inc panel definition
emu/cmds.txt command line interface documentation
emu/init.ini emulator init file
emu/mem_* core memory backing store
tools
tools/dtr2dta.c convert between raw (dtr) and simh (dta) DECtape format
tools/mkpty.c make a pty and connect to the controlling tty
tools/mkpty33.c as above but try to pretend an ASR33
tools/as6.c an assembler, roughly modeled on MACRO
tools/ld6.c a loader or relocatable files
tools/pdp6bin.h
tools/pdp6common.c useful functions for PDP-6 code
tools/pdp6common.h
tools/rel.c I have no recollection of this code
tools/reltest.c old test code to create a REL file
tools/test.s old test code for the assembler/linker
tools/test2.s
tools/ptdump.c print a paper tape file in octal
tools/dtdump.c print dtr DECtape
verilog
verilog/... fpga stuff
code random code for the PDP-6, mostly testing
code/bootstrap.txt a list of boot loaders
code/dtboot.s loads the first block from a DECtape
code/main.s random entry
code/tty.s tty character IO
panel stand alone panel with lots of duplicate code
art image files for the panel
misc nothing important
To do
- repeat and maint. switches on panel
- improve timing
- do more tests
- ...