>From: Brian D Chase <bdc@world.std.com>

>On a related note.  This is something I either dreamed or maybe even have
>previously read on this newsgroup, but I seem to recall a discussion of
>someone repackaging the VS2000 logic boards into a laptop sized case.  I'd
>imagine that it's entirely feasible.  You could probably even wire it to
>an LCD panel which would behave as a simple serial terminal.

I used to work for a little company (Fornax in NJ) that would repackage
3100s in aluminum suitcases as luggables.  One of my jobs while I was there
was doing the same thing for the 4000 -- the daughterboard with the halt
switch and squeaker+LEDs was too big and stuck out in an inconvenient
direction so I made smaller PCBs that had only the halt function, then I
made a 3.3 V regular board to hang off the generic power supplies we got
(3.3 wasn't common then) which also held the isolated -9VDC converter for
ethernet xcvrs.  The SCSI drive screwed to the back of the panel.  Not quite
a laptop (actually there was space to velcro a laptop inside the lid as a
terminal) but still pretty convenient, you could carry the suitcase w/o
limping anyway.

>From: Ty Sarna <tsarna@endicor.com>

>Or you could go the wimp's route and run a VAX emulator on a PC laptop.
>Anyone written such a thing?

Think there'd be a market?  I think it would be feasible (although still
pretty difficult) to replace E11's CPU emulation and do a good job of at
least the Unibusish VAXen (since the peripherals are the hardest part and
they're the same as for the PDP-11, except the RHes I guess), but would
there really be a point?

>Or, while we're speaking of old iron, I've
>heard there is a fairly complete IBM/370 emulator somewhere. Anyone want
>to port NetBSD to it? :-)

Maybe you're thinking of Fundamental Software's Open/370?  If so it costs
$7500 if I remember right but supposedly does a great job (translates rather
than interpreting so the speed is good).  Of course you could just run
AIX/370 instead of porting NetBSD, but while you're at it you might as well
just drill holes in your skull and let the evil spirits out the easy way.  I
used to use it at RPI and under some circumstances the C compiler would choke
on its *own* include files!  Piece of crap.  Luckily the machine was running
VM so there were more sensible OSes available.

John Wilson
D Bit