It also a sad fact that many more CPUs are being saved from the scrapheap than drives leading to a lot of collectors having a CPU unit but no storage to boot them from.

I’m therefore kicking off a pet project to build a versatile solution using modern hardware to provide a long term storage solution for our machines. The key objectives of this project will be as follows:

• Provide a reliable solution that as far as possible is not tied to any technology that is likely to become obsolete in the next 10 years
• Ease of installation and operation.
• Provide adequate storage capacity for all of the common PDP-11 operating systems
• Make as much use as possible of pre-existing efforts to crack this problem

My initial plan is to develop this solution in two phases:

1. Would involve a server running SIMH, a TU58 emulator, vtserver and an RX01/02 emulator. The server would operate under Linux operating system (Centos4) and would have a web based interface for managing the various components. Installation would be via a yum based repository allowing users to install and update the setup on their system from a simple set of commands.
2. Much more ambitious, but where I think we should ultimately reach will be to develop custom Unibus/Qbus/Omnibus controller cards for interfacing directly to the bus. This will allow us to provide a solution with a good level of performance without any requirements for pre-existing controllers (such as RX11s).