RetroCore Labs is where I keep the work on Norsk Data machines: emulators for the ND-100, ND-110, ND-120 and ND-500 families, an ND-120 running in an FPGA, controller cards rebuilt on modern hardware, and the tools needed to build software for them again.
What you will find here
- Projects - one page per project with status, links and, where there is a browser build, a way to try it without installing anything.
- Blog - longer write-ups: how a boot sequence was traced, why a microcode field means what it means, what went wrong on the bench.
- GitHub - the source for everything public lives under RetroCoreLabs.
- YouTube - demos and walk-throughs on InvalidNopCode.
Why Norsk Data
Norsk Data built minicomputers in Norway from 1967 until the early nineties. The ND-100 family ran SINTRAN III, a real-time operating system that is still readable and still surprising. Very little of the hardware survives, and the documentation is scattered. Emulating the machines and preserving the manuals keeps that work from disappearing.
Most of the emulators run in the browser. Look for the "Try it in your browser" button on a project page.
More posts will follow as the projects move.