Hello one and all.
I haven't been around here for a while, in fact, rather embarrassingly I forgot I even had an account. :eh:
My company is getting very close to retiring the last of their Alphas, and I must admit to getting rather nostalgic and sad that this will be the end of Digital in my life - I have worked with Digital systems for a very large part of my career. (PDP11, VAX, and Alpha)
I love playing around with retro-computers in my spare time which got me thinking about getting my hands on a PDP11. However, I am astounded at the prices they are going for at the moment. There is an 11/34 going on eBay Germany (where I am based) at the moment but the guy wants 1450 plus shipping, which (as my wife says) is a heck of a lot of money for a pile of chips, and (not to put too finer point on it) I can't really afford that much. I could cry when I remember how many went into skips because nobody wanted them!
An alternative, was to get one from one of the local IT Suppliers - but sadly, they will only sell to businesses (EU law dictates that they have to give a guarantee when selling into private hands - and rather than doing that, they sell to businesses only)
Which brings me onto a third option - write my own emulator. I know this has been done but just playing with SIMH isn't really a substitute for the real hardware, although it takes up less space, and is cheaper to run.
So, my options are:
1. Keep waiting in the hope a cheaper PDP11 turns up (unlikely)
2. Start writing that emulator.
Anymore? I realise this isn't really a question but maybe it will open up a discussion.
I haven't been around here for a while, in fact, rather embarrassingly I forgot I even had an account. :eh:
My company is getting very close to retiring the last of their Alphas, and I must admit to getting rather nostalgic and sad that this will be the end of Digital in my life - I have worked with Digital systems for a very large part of my career. (PDP11, VAX, and Alpha)
I love playing around with retro-computers in my spare time which got me thinking about getting my hands on a PDP11. However, I am astounded at the prices they are going for at the moment. There is an 11/34 going on eBay Germany (where I am based) at the moment but the guy wants 1450 plus shipping, which (as my wife says) is a heck of a lot of money for a pile of chips, and (not to put too finer point on it) I can't really afford that much. I could cry when I remember how many went into skips because nobody wanted them!
An alternative, was to get one from one of the local IT Suppliers - but sadly, they will only sell to businesses (EU law dictates that they have to give a guarantee when selling into private hands - and rather than doing that, they sell to businesses only)
Which brings me onto a third option - write my own emulator. I know this has been done but just playing with SIMH isn't really a substitute for the real hardware, although it takes up less space, and is cheaper to run.
So, my options are:
1. Keep waiting in the hope a cheaper PDP11 turns up (unlikely)
2. Start writing that emulator.
Anymore? I realise this isn't really a question but maybe it will open up a discussion.