The TI 34020 is the (principally similar) successor to the 34010, and I have
designed in my company our basic bread-and-butter product of that time
around that some 7 years ago. This is machine vision, i.e. digital image
processing.
I do not think it is advisable to emulate anything. If you want to build the
Perfect Computer (tm) I would suggest to use Linux as operating system, and
write your own driver for whatever display hardware you see fit.
The TI 340x0 family is best viewed as a totally general microprocessor,
which happens to have a few special gadgets for image / graphics processing.
There is nothing you could not do in principle by using any other
microprocessor,
but some things - in particular drawing graphics - will just be significantly
faster on the TI 340x0. The basic thing to know is that in those days people
were most concerned about putting graphics display lists on the screen,
that is you have a list of triangles, lines, circles, and whatnot, and the
hardware primitives (really microcode of course) on the TI 340x0 allow you
to do that pretty efficiently.
That in other word means, that _ON_ _THE_ _APPLICATION_ _LEVEL_
you must be prepared to hand DISPLAY LISTS over to the graphcis processor;
in those times, that was done by people like AutoCad, e.g.
John G. Zabolitzky
Hi Folks
I picked up a DB MV/200 DC and the micro to load it. The problem being,
I'm not sure how to hook it all back together. Anyone got any ideas or
know where I can find info on the beast? The machine is ported for 48
RS232 devices, but I'm not too sure what its good for.
Thanks
Terry
terryf(a)intersurf.com
I don't know what all this stuff means, but NASA paid Martin Marietta,
where I worked back in those days, a LOT of dough, and provided
documentation labeled Honeywell and showing pictures, though they were not
relevant, of a model 516 computer. I spent six months or more poring over
schematics, struggling to keep my eyes open, and making note of any
potential race conditions, running logic simulations, etc, just to document
all the potential single-point failure modes and their potential effect.
We found several conditions which seemed to be "bugs" in the system,
capable of creating catastrophic failures resulting in loss of lives and
billions of dollars' worth of equipment, but those were "ground-ruled-out,"
meaning that, for example, a power supply failure in the mode wherein it
drifts completely out of regulation, is a "normal" operating circumstance
and need not be considered . . . but, I digress . . .
The fact is, dladies and gentlemen, that the proposition of the time was
that the engine controllers were Honeywell 516's, whatever that means.
There was talk of installing a 68000-based computer in their place because
semiconductor memories were faster, and a system of that type was superior
for many reasons, not the least of which was modern read-only memories
would allow much better testing. The plated-wire memories in use on the
Challenger engine controllers allowed fault conditions which were not
detected to be inherited from a previous mission, which risks went
completely away with the newer design. It's not hard to imagine that such
an upgrade would save on power and weight, as well as providing much more
testability. It should also be enough faster to improve the system
considerably.
Dick
----------
> From: Hans Franke <Hans.Franke(a)mch20.sbs.de>
> To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
> Subject: Space shuttle computers
> Date: Wednesday, March 03, 1999 12:17 PM
>
> (Just reaching the Internet/Shuttle thread :)
>
> > The best information I have suggests that the Space Shuttle does not
> > use the Honeywell DDP-516 in any capacity, and that engine control is
performed
> > by the some of the IOP processors that are part of the IBM AP-101S
> > computers. The entire AP-101S, including both the GPC and IOP,
occupies
> > about 0.025 cubic meters, masses about 30 Kg, and consumes about 550 W.
> > A DDP-516 occupies about 2.5 cubic meters, masses about 250 Kg, and
consumes
> > over 1000 W.
>
> AFAIK the first generation of rocket control computers
> (thrust, angle, etc.) had HDC-601 processors (with plate
> wire core mem), And if I'm not completly wrong, the HDC-601
> is a DDP-516 compatible system. I don't know if the shuttle
> engines have been equipped with them, since the actual
> controlers are (since the mid 80s) are based on 68.000
> processors.
>
> And for the AF-101, I always belived the last core mem unit
> was named AF-101F not B, as mentioned in another message. In
> fact, I love the idea of using a /370s design CPU - It's just
> the best OPcode design ever :)
>
> BTW, does anybody know if a new design is planed ?
>
> Gruss
> H.
>
> --
> Ich denke, also bin ich, also gut
> HRK
> And are there other categories of products that might become future
> collectibles?
First mouse? Oddball mice? First hard drive? Seminal software, of course.
In einer eMail vom 06.03.99 10:25:15 MEZ, schreibt Derek:
<<
> The TI 34020 is the (principally similar) successor to the 34010, and I
have
> designed in my company our basic bread-and-butter product of that time
> around that some 7 years ago. This is machine vision, i.e. digital image
> processing.
I've read (I forget where -- maybe Micro Cornucopia) that the 34020 is
basically the same as the 34010, except that it works with larger amounts of
data at the same time. Were there any instruction-set changes?
I really cannot tell, I do not recall the 34010 and do not hace any docs
about it,
though I do have everything about 34020.
> I do not think it is advisable to emulate anything. If you want to build
the
> Perfect Computer (tm) I would suggest to use Linux as operating system, and
> write your own driver for whatever display hardware you see fit.
:) Well, the number of games on the PC is a very seductive thing.
Then, 340x0 will not help you at all.
I think Linux is very good overall. I plan on installing it on my Macintosh
as soon as the quarter (school) is over. But there are some other
interesting OSs too, and many of them are even relevant to the list. I've
heard good things about RSX-11M, RT-11, the various TRS-80 OSs, FLEX, OS-9,
SK*DOS, and others. There was also a competitor to CP/M which has been
praised (possibly by Allison) because it provided some important services
that CP/M didn't. Unfortunately I forget if it was by Northstar, Cromenco,
or Ohio Scientific.
Admittedly, many of those are simpler than UNIX. But a few are real-time,
which UNIX is not. Besides, almost any design is interesting in some way.
I also have visions of putting together a Transputer-based system and
somehow creating vast amounts of computer power out of thin air. :) From
my reading, it seems there are two main drawbacks: 1) Generally, the
Transputer depends on a host. 2) Parallel processors are very powerful but
they won't solve every problem equally well, and they present some very
subtle and nasty traps to the student or programmer. Maybe it's time for
Tony to come back into this thread, since he seems to be the Transputer
expert.
I have done quite some work on parallel systems; the efficiency
and ease of programming depends _TRMENDOUSLY_ on the
problem you are looking at; some (like Monte-Carlo simulation) just fit
perfectly well, others (like running canned software) not at all.
Of course, it will be mandatory for high-performance computing in the
future,
in fact is already today, to go parallel; in all cases I know at
tremendous
work on the algorithm level parallelization.
My personal preference is in shared-memory parallel processing;
the transputers are message-passing parallelism, which I personally
do not find very useful. But that depends of course on the problems
and algorithms I am interested in.
> faster on the TI 340x0. The basic thing to know is that in those days
people
> were most concerned about putting graphics display lists on the screen,
> that is you have a list of triangles, lines, circles, and whatnot, and the
> hardware primitives (really microcode of course) on the TI 340x0 allow you
> to do that pretty efficiently.
I understand display lists pretty well. Many vector-graphics machines used
them; Sketchpad relied on them and Evans & Sutherland continued the trend.
(I'd love to play with some of their machines!)
Also the Atari 8-bit machines had a limited form, and you could say the
Amiga has them as well. This kind of dipslay list relates to memory layout
and interpretation, rather than defining objects in memory. But it still
makes certain tasks absurdly easy, instead of very time-consuming.
> That in other word means, that _ON_ _THE_ _APPLICATION_ _LEVEL_
> you must be prepared to hand DISPLAY LISTS over to the graphcis processor;
> in those times, that was done by people like AutoCad, e.g.
How does the 34010 do in handling bitmaps?
The 34020 (and I believe the 34010 had that as well) deals with that
through
special bit-blit operations, bit-block-transfer and simultaneous
logical/masking
operations. This is much supported by VRAM hardware used at that time;
the VRAM chips have bitblt features built in. The performance was exactly
equal to the VRAM theoretical max throughput, i.e. the TI processor made
the
best possible use of available memory technology.
-- Derek
>>
John.
Hi,
----------
> From: Tony Duell <ard(a)p850ug1.demon.co.uk>
> To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
> Subject: Re: The TI 34010
> Date: Saturday, March 06, 1999 3:48 PM
>
> > There are two basic types of multi processor processing, SIMD (Single
> > Instruction, Multiple Data) and MIMD (Multiple Instruction, Multiple
Data).
I guess there are three: SIMD, MIMD & shared memory, MIMD distributed
memory. (UMA & NUMA)
> No, transputers are certainly MIMD.
>
> A transputer chip contains a complete CPU, possibly an FPU, a small
> amount of RAM, and 4 high-speed serial links. You can actually ignore the
> links if you want to, and use it as a simple CPU (I can't think why you'd
> _want_ to do this, but you can)
We did it for a laser printer. The transputer was doing the
emulations,BitBlt,graphics, had the "big" memory & output shift register.
Got the program downloaded from a NEC V25, which controlled the centronics
& V24. Was very easy to develope, because:
1.) the transputer supported DRAM directly
2.) debugging was easy, because you could download the programs via link
3.) pin compatible versions with/without FPU (FPU was used only for
postscript)
4.) Lots of application notes & support from INMOS at this time.
Just my .0002 cents
cheers,
emanuel
Hi,
----------
> From: Tony Duell <ard(a)p850ug1.demon.co.uk>
> To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
> Subject: Re: The TI 34010
> Date: Saturday, March 06, 1999 1:11 PM
> I have the TMS34010 data sheet here, but what we really need is the user
> manual. The data sheet has the pinouts, timing diagrams, etc in it -
> hardware info. It appears that programming info was mostly in the user
> manual, though.
The tms34020 was faster, new instructions, bigger address & data. You could
even attach a FP unit to it.
> > How does the 34010 do in handling bitmaps?
> Are you sure about that? Most VRAMs (certainly the ones in use when the
> 34010 came out) seem to be nothing more than DRAMs with a second address
> port that transfers one row of data into a shift register. The bitstream
> from the S/R is fed to the video circuitry. No bit-blit operations.
The second generation had something like mask/logical operations. Comes out
with the tms34010. I should have the application notes somewhere :-((
cheers,
emanuel
Having just returned from another depressing First Saturday trip - loads
of PC clones and scanners, one nut selling a core memory board for $1000
- and oh yes, a Timex 1500 I bought for $3, I find myself wondering what
possible post-Windows3-era stuff can be/will be possibly considered
collectible some day.
It occurs to me that one candidate would be the first batch of digital
cameras.
So made the first consumer-level digital camera? Kodak had a hi-end
modified Nikon about 7 years ago, but I'm thinking the Apple QuickTake
100 is the earliest digital camera I can think of.
And are there other categories of products that might become future
collectibles?
--Larry
