> Honestly, I can't see the point in modern upgrades except perhaps for > temporary use in order to get data to/from original equipment. At the point > where people start adding emulated storage, USB interfaces, VGA display > hardware etc. it stops being a vintage system and starts being a modern > version which just happens to still have a few vintage parts. May as well > say screw it and just use an emulator for the whole thing... > > Now upgrades within the realm of what would have been possible during a > system's lifetime I can get on board with - using period components to > implement things such as Ethernet interfaces, accelerators, extra memory > etc...
I'm with you on this, generally... A concrete example. As many of you know I have a VAX 11/730 that I am restoring (It's currently on hold as I may have a lead on a scrap RA80 that I can get the brackets, etc, I need to repair the R80 from (as well as a spare HDA) so until I know one way or the other I am not going to do metalbashing...). I do NOT want to use any of the common TU58 emulators. It seems ridiculous to use something like an Rpi to boot an 11/730 CPU. If I can't get the real tape-based TU58 running then any emulator I make for it will use a CPU contemporary with the rest of the machine (probably an 8085 as used in the real TU58). Similarly I want to keep FPGAs and the like (hacker-unfriendly, closed, devices) away from my classics. I want proper documentation -- that's one reason I run the classics in the first place. Not a closed-source compiler that does $diety-knows-what to my design. I will not stick an FPGA-based board in my Unibus, there were no such things with the Unibus was 'current' . However, how far do you go (I am asking, I am not sure of the answer). Is it 'OK' to use a modern machine running a terminal emulator in place of a real contemporary-to-the-machine terminal (FWIW, I do try to have at least the console as a 'real' terminal in the end but might well use a terminal emulator when getting it all working). What about mass storage units that just connect to a peripheral interface (I am thinking of things like the HPIB-interfaced drives on HP9000/200 machnes). Should you not use modern machines and compilers to cross-develop software for classic computers? Should you only use test gear that was contemporary with the machine (so no DSO's when working on classics, I should not use my (ancient) logic analysers, even less the LogicDart on my PDP11s)? -tony