In article <199802061308.AA16712@world.std.com> you write:
> 
> At this point I say desolder the vax chip and the FPU if seperate and make 
> a vax to 486 adaptor socket.  ;-)

While we're talking about increasingly silly VAX hardware project ideas
how about this one:

Build a new VAX. CPU and all, I mean.

Use an (or maybe even more than one) inexpensive but very fast MISC CPU
like the P32 (if it ever comes to market) as a "microcode sequencer" of
sorts, and write a VAX instruction set for it.  (Or, depending on your
point of view, build a MISC-based computer specifically to run a VAX
emulator).  It should be fairly fast -- not enough to make it
commercially worthwhile, but I bet it'd be as fast as or even faster
than most of the VAXes people here have, depending on which MISC chip
was used, and would be very inexpensive to produce even in small
quantities.  Plus, it'd probably be the lowest transistor count VAX CPU
ever made, by far :-). 

The downside is that somebody has to write the code (the complexity not
implemeneted in transistors has to go somewhere :->).  Somebody with a
lot of time, and willing to risk insanity from trying to debug it all. :-)