alt Hacker NewsI mean...there's some precedent. The XKL TOAD ("Ten On A Desk") implements the PDP-10 instruction set, and will happily run TOPS-10/TOPS-20. LCM had one doing just that.
https://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/10277383... https://www.twenex.org/?network
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It's tempting to write a PDP-10 emulator for the Atari ST called TOAST.
FWIW I'm developing "tiny-titan", a stand-in for Cambridge's Titan mainframe that talks to Heinz Lemke's 1972 PIXIE program over an emulated version of Neil Wiseman's PDP-7 <=> Titan link. It doesn't emulate Titan itself, just the conversation PIXIE had with it, so the unmodified 1972 PDP-7 code dials home and uploads its drawings.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titan_(1963_computer)
>Titan was the prototype of the Atlas 2 computer developed by Ferranti and the University of Cambridge Mathematical Laboratory in Cambridge, England. It was designed starting in 1963, and in operation from 1964 to 1973.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49407938
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40617894
Flight of the PIXIE - Yuja Wang:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jDrqR9XssJI
UNIVERSITY MATHEMATICAL LABORATORY, CAMBRIDGE: Cambridge Supervisor - Planning Document 10 Software for the Titan/PDP-7 link:
https://cucps.soc.srcf.net/titan/supplan/pd10.htm
Here is a photo of Heinz Lemke operating PIXIE with the light pen and 340 display on the PDP-7 (also seen in the video above):
https://www.facebook.com/groups/779220482206901/posts/629772...
XKL is still in business (https://xkl.com/)
as far as i know the control plane on their equipment is still a pdp-10 compatible