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Building a replica Mainframe Console

Posted: 26 Dec 2017, 23:05
by __red__
Slightly off-topic:

I want to build a replica console for one of the really old mainframes - like this:

Image

Of course, my reason for not building that isn't scale - that doesn't scare me. It's that I can't find a single reference that explains what each of the blinkenlights / switches / buttons do.

Anyone know of a blinkenlights console that's fairly well documented?

Thanks,


Red

Posted: 26 Dec 2017, 23:13
by Chyros
Oooooh, that just looks magnificent.... I want a wall in my house to look like that :D .

Posted: 27 Dec 2017, 00:26
by andrewjoy
looks like they are full banks of program flags or registers , possibly even memory. So down to the level of is bit 1 1 or 0 is bit 2 1 or 0 and so on.

Posted: 27 Dec 2017, 01:39
by __red__
Chyros wrote: Oooooh, that just looks magnificent.... I want a wall in my house to look like that :D .
When I decide which I'm going to do I'll publish the designs so you can follow along if you want. So help me find one that you like too :-)

Posted: 27 Dec 2017, 01:59
by __red__
andrewjoy wrote: looks like they are full banks of program flags or registers , possibly even memory. So down to the level of is bit 1 1 or 0 is bit 2 1 or 0 and so on.
Pretty much - I think it also allows you to directly manipulate memory and registers on the fly. You 'halt' the CPU, make your changes and go!

Like a hardware GDB!

If I could find documentation for the whole panel that would rock...