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Circuit-level PDP-11/34 emulator

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Why This Matters

The circuit-level PDP-11/34 emulator offers a highly accurate virtual replica of the original hardware, enabling detailed troubleshooting and analysis at the signal level. Its precise modeling of the CPU and peripherals makes it a valuable tool for both historical preservation and hardware debugging in the tech industry.

Key Takeaways

ll/34 is a circuit-level emulator for the PDP-11/34A (1976), running a virtual CPU reverse-engineered from the schematics, microcode, and logic captures of an actual PDP-11/34A.

It was originally designed as a digital replica of the real CPU to assist with troubleshooting at the signal level. The virtual KD11-EA CPU essentially consists of a C translation of the schematics, and lookups to the ROM tables. All combinational ROMs are reverse-engineered, and the clock generator is precisely modeled.

Circuit-level (ROM truth tables + combinatorial logic) was chosen other gate-level (Verilog) because it is low-level enough to reproduce hardware bugs, yet fast enough to run programs.

Emulated devices

UNIBUS backplane (timing and signal accurate)

KD11-EA CPU (circuit-level)

M9301 boot card with original boot and diagnostic ROMs

DL11 serial card (timing accurate)

KW11 line clock (50/60 Hz)

Programmer Console (including maintenance mode for CPU troubleshooting)

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