Building a PDP-11/70 Kit

The PDP-11/70 was a 16-bit minicomputer built by Digital Equipment Corporation in the 1970s. Amongst other things it is well-known for its front panel designs, with color-coded (and color-coordinated) switches and associated blinkenlights. I have an interest in vintage computers, mostly focused on Macs from the late 1980s, that I ended up indulging a little during the pandemic. I’ve fixed up a couple of SE/30s and a Quadra 700) over the past year. However, restoring a real PDP-11 is rather beyond my technical capabilities, not to mention my storage capacity and my ability to justify its acquisition financially. However, Oscar Vermeulen makes a fabulous little kit called the PiDP-11. It is a 6:10 scale replica of the PDP-11/70’s front panel. You assemble the board connect it to a Raspberry Pi via the Pi’s GPIO port. It runs some software that emulates the PDP’s operating system. The switches and LEDs and so on all function just as they would on the real machine. Oscar’s attention to detail is very high, both inside the machine and out, so when he started selling a new batch of his kits I bought one. Here are some pictures of the process of assembling it.