So much silliness...
1) The iAPX-432 was released, and I've seen them in the wild. Why they
don't own the computing world has been hashed to death but more articulate
folks than I. They even show up from time to time on (horror, much gnashing
of teeth, devil incarnate) eBay. You, of course, blaspheme against the
Classiccmp gods if you ever look for one there, so we shouldn't even mention
it...
2) The i860 was a fascinating little chip, but in a train wreck sort of way.
In other words "it is horrible, and yet I cannot look away". The compiler
was miserable, the doco insufficient, but if you had a wonk that really
understood the beast, and had a single algorithm that you wanted to
implement, you could achieve magic. Many graphics processors worked this
magic.
3) The i960 was originally worked up for a next generation Intel mainstream
processor. It's definition included MMUs, etc., and it ended up in one of
Intels' supercomputers. Never quite worked out that way they hoped, though,
so the MMUs got deleted and the i960 found new life as an embedded
processor. There are a vast number of i960s out there in printers, network
card, RAID controllers, etc.
4) XTerminals. Nice toys. Contrary to one posters opinion, there was an
Xterm built around *everyones* processor, not just i960. I know of
XTerminals based on VAX, 34010/34020, 680[0234]0, MIPS, 88000, i960, i860 &
i80[2345]86. They aren't exactly rocket science.
Ken
"Bruce Ray" <bkr(a)WildHareComputers.com> said
> moving companies moving RETMA-racked equipment.
Are these really pre-1957 racks or is that a
phrase of habit?
Regards,
--Doug
=========================================
Doug Coward
@ home in Poulsbo, WA
Analog Computer Online Museum and History Center
http://www.best.com/~dcoward/analog
=========================================
On May 24, Will Jennings wrote:
> Now give me a Hazeltine 1500, and I'm interested : )
I've been looking for one of those for a while. I used one on my
imsai box years ago; I'd like to have one around for posterity.
-Dave McGuire
Hello, all:
I am looking for docs on the MITS 88RTC real-time clock board so that I can
add support for it in the Altair32 emulator. If anyone has a copy they can
scan for me, I'd appreciate it. Thanks.
Rich
Rich Cini
Collector of classic computers
Build Master for the Altair32 Emulation Project
Web site: http://highgate.comm.sfu.ca/~rcini/classiccmp/
/************************************************************/
> If you ever worked on a Xerox, where you had the copy/move/prop/...
special
> keys on the left hand side of your keyboard you'd know how easy handling
can
> be ... unlike todays interface, where you use the mouse for several thing,
> here the little critter was only a pointing device, while you selected
most
> functions via keys (and your left hand).
Heck yes, it's *way* better that what we've ended up with! I reckon things
started going downhill when somebody dreamt up the menu bar - the original
Star interface had a button bar across the top of the window where you could
get at the few functions you couldn't provide by the left-hand keypad. None
of this "hunt the menu option" rubbish you have to do now.
IMHO the Star interface was, and still is, about as good as you're likely
to get with the windows-icons-mouse paradigm. Look at the fuss Microsoft
made about making the desktop more "document-centric" - that's what the Star
desktop was all about in the first place! Something was lost when Apple
implemented their own version of it, which Microsoft then copied.
Al
No, I was meaning why do they go for so much now.. They're certainly not
rare or for that matter, reliable. Not to mention that I find them ugly,
ugly, ugly! But that last part was opinion.. Still, if you need a terminal
today, get like a wyse-55 or something.
Will J
_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com
Now whats going on with the list... I'm getting everything twice!
Allison
-----Original Message-----
From: Bill Pechter <pechter(a)bg-tc-ppp1649.monmouth.com>
To: classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org>
Date: Thursday, May 24, 2001 7:38 PM
Subject: Re: Wanted: iAPX-432
>> [i860]
>> > > You also find them in a most X-terminals. In fact, I think
>> > > every X-terminal that I have checked used them.
>> >
>> > Interesting-- so far, all of the Xterms I've seen use either MIPS
>> > or Motorola chips. I have seen them in alot of telecom and
>> > cellular equipment, though . . .
>>
>> An Xtermianl I have here uses a TI 34010 as the main processor. Yes, a
>> graphics processor chip. The Xserver (a very old version, may even be
>> X10...) is in a row of EPROMs on a daughterboard that plugs into video
board.
>>
>> There's also an 80188, but that's just used for I/O as far as I can
see.
>>
>> -tony
>
>IBM used something similar in their low end Xterminals.
>I think they upgraded to faster CPU's in the higher end 150 models.
>The 110 (iirc) and 130(iirc) were pretty slow.
>
>I've got a Dec VT1200 here and it seems pretty good for a mono
>Xterminal.
>
>Bill
>---
> Bill Gates is a Persian cat and a monocle away from being a
> villain in a James Bond movie -- Dennis Miller
> bpechter@shell.monmouth.com|pechter@pechter.dyndns.org
If anyone is looking for an old DEC Rainbow 100 (CPU, monitor, keyboard,
modem) with software and documentation, please contact me at:
ssietz(a)iname.com
On Thu, 24 May 2001 15:33:08 -0400 joe <rigdonj(a)intellistar.net> writes:
> >I remember that there were ISA boards with multiple i860's
> >offered back then; the idea was to have lots of number-crunching
> >power in a PC back then. However, I never saw similar
> >products based on i960. I believe that the i860 was geared
> >more towards float processing/embedded control/multi user OS/
> >parallel processing architectures and the i960 was strictly for
> >embedded control, with emphasis on integer performance.
> >You'll find i960's in many HP laser printers.
>
>
> You also find them in a most X-terminals. In fact, I think
> every X-terminal that I have checked used them.
Interesting-- so far, all of the Xterms I've seen use either MIPS
or Motorola chips. I have seen them in alot of telecom and
cellular equipment, though . . .
________________________________________________________________
GET INTERNET ACCESS FROM JUNO!
Juno offers FREE or PREMIUM Internet access for less!
Join Juno today! For your FREE software, visit:
http://dl.www.juno.com/get/tagj.
"Yes, all of the Xerox Workstations from the Alto on use a Mesa processor,
A little like a Nova but with Writable Control Store (WCS)."
Completely false.
One of the Alto instruction sets was an extended Nova. The MESA machine
is more like an HP3000 than a Nova. It is defined in the MESA "Princeops"
manual. Alan Freier had this on line at one point, not sure if anyone
saved a copy.
