>
>Subject: TI 990 architecture / was Re: TI-99/4A Floppies
> From: Brent Hilpert <hilpert at cs.ubc.ca>
> Date: Tue, 02 Oct 2007 00:35:01 -0700
> To: General at priv-edtnaa06.telusplanet.net,
> "Discussion at priv-edtnaa06.telusplanet.net":On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
> <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
>
>Chuck Guzis wrote:
>>
>> On 2 Oct 2007 at 2:16, Liam Proven wrote:
>>
>> > They were pretty much the first ever 16-bit home micro, but it was a
>> > crippled 16-bit chip - as detailed in another message in this thread.
>> > They did have good keyboards, were solidly built and I believe the
>> > graphics chip was, for its time, decent and capable.
>>
>> Tossing all of the other chips and CROMs and other stuff out, how
>> compatible was the TMS9900 with the TI 990 mini? The same or
>> considerablly different?
>
>I can't state so categorically but my understanding is that they were very
>much the same.
>Going back to a conversation of a few weeks ago, when we were
>developing/running Verex/Thoth at UBC ca 1980 it was on a 990/10. The next
>major step in the project was to develop a distributed kernel for multiple
>processors. To this end, 3 bare single board computers based on the 9900 chip
>were ordered and received from TI. Something makes me think they were called
>"990/5"s. I remember making up a front panel for the 3 of them with reset
>buttons and a few status LEDs to go in the rack with the /10. The idea, of
>course, was to use the 9900s because we already had the compilers,etc.
>generating code for the 990/10.
Actually 1980 was mid to late in the life of the TI9900 chip. The first
one I worked with was on a Technico Superstarter System, TI9900, 2k ram,
1k prom (monitor ans line by line asm) and a 2708 eprom programmer on
one board. I still have it. I purchased it at PCC '78 in in memory
serves Philly. Fir the amount of resource on the board it was pretty
capable for systems of that day.
>(Cheriton left before we actually got into using them at the software level
>and the distributed kernel would become the VKernel at Stanford on other hardware).
>
>Also, the description of the 9900 in Osborne's "An Introduction to
>Microcomputers, Vol II" ('76) fits well with my recollections of the 990/10.
>
>To my knowledge the 9900 chip was not crippled; rather (going from what others
>have described) the design and implementation of the 99/4 home computer failed
>to make effective use of it. I didn't follow micros too much in the early 80s
>but I remember wondering at the time why the 99/4 was doing so poorly when it
>had that great processor in it.
There are really three 99/4 home computers, original with chiclet keys, the
second and most common with a really nice keyboard and the whie version that
is really the same thing with a few board level cost reductions.
The 9900 chips is not crippled, for 1976 three voltage NMOS its about as fast
as the technology of the time could go. The TI99/4 did however do a nasty to
it. One is they muxed the bus down to 8bits wide and that does slow the system
some. There were 128 words of ram (6810s) that if you execute there the speed
is noticeable. The other is the GROM (sort of an interpreted language with a
register point to next instruction) is a bottleneck as well. There was a
later 9980 and the 9985 which were a 8bit bus interface and were somewhat
crippled but I'd never seen one in a TI99/4A.
>I quite liked the 990 architecture with the workspace pointer. Yes, there was
>the overhead of accessing registers in memory, but there were also savings.
>The workspace pointer essentially became the stack/frame pointer. Procedure
>calls, interrupts and process switches were quick because there were only 3
>machine registers to save (PC,WSP,PSW). Stack variables and parameters were
>referenced in instructions as registers, thus saving on instruction
>length/memory accesses to retrieve addresses/offsets, etc. For use with
>"modern software design", i.e.: stack-oriented high-level languages, I thought
>it was a quite effective architecture.
It was a very minicomputer in look and feel and the addressing modes were on
par with PDP11 and other CISC machines.
Allison
>
>Subject: Re: TI 990 architecture / was Re: TI-99/4A Floppies
> From: "Peter C. Wallace" <pcw at mesanet.com>
> Date: Wed, 03 Oct 2007 10:13:12 -0700 (PDT)
> To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
>
>>
>> Actually 1980 was mid to late in the life of the TI9900 chip. The first
>> one I worked with was on a Technico Superstarter System, TI9900, 2k ram,
>> 1k prom (monitor ans line by line asm) and a 2708 eprom programmer on
>> one board. I still have it. I purchased it at PCC '78 in in memory
>> serves Philly. Fir the amount of resource on the board it was pretty
>> capable for systems of that day.
>
>
>
>That sure brings back memories. I also had a Technico SuperStarter (Two bytes
>are better than one!) Eventually made a wire wrapped 32 KByte RAM card (using
I still have mine and it's operational.
>TMS4060 non muxed 4K DRAMS), a 256x256 graphic display, A wire wrapped floppy
>controller (8 inch with 16 KByte DRAM track buffer). The floppy was a
>revelation after waiting for the papertape version of EAL (Editor Assembler
>Linker?) to load.
Did do all that with mine. Mostly used it for small playing and dumping
2708 eproms.
>>> (Cheriton left before we actually got into using them at the software level
>>> and the distributed kernel would become the VKernel at Stanford on other hardware).
>>>
>>> Also, the description of the 9900 in Osborne's "An Introduction to
>>> Microcomputers, Vol II" ('76) fits well with my recollections of the 990/10.
>
>I think I chose the 9900 based on the Osborne book, it had the shortest
>benchmark program...
Strikingly so.
>Interestingly TI's MSP430 has an instruction set reminiscent of the 9900
Instruction sets tend to repeat and reoccur.
Allison
... and if you're a "Mac fanboi" don't go here... ;-)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/09/28/bofh_episode_33/
Laterz,
Roger "Merch" Merchberger
--
Roger "Merch" Merchberger -- SysAdmin, Iceberg Computers
zmerch at 30below.com
Hi! I am a .signature virus. Copy me into your .signature to join in!
Sorry for the double post, not wanting to pester anyone, but I figured I'd better write what I need on the subject line because not everybody might be following the VSII thread.
So, I'm looking for the OpenMOP daemon for Windows by Fred N. van Kempen in order to get my newly-acquired VAXstation II/GPX started with NetBSD/vax (or whatever).
I didn't find anything on the 'net except for Freds announcing the program and looking for test users here, his homepage is currently down, the program is nowhere to be found on the archived snapshots and it's been a long time since I last remember reading from him here. Anybody know if he's okay?
TIA,
Arno Kletzander
--
GMX FreeMail: 1 GB Postfach, 5 E-Mail-Adressen, 10 Free SMS.
Alle Infos und kostenlose Anmeldung: http://www.gmx.net/de/go/freemail
On 10/2/07, Zane H. Healy <healyzh at aracnet.com> wrote:
>
> At 4:54 PM +0100 9/30/07, Jules Richardson wrote:
> >Jason T wrote:
> >>My 3100/30 boots fine off the Hobbyist VMS disc using my
> >>boots-anything Apple CD300 (aka Sony) drive.
> >
> >You got there first :-) Pulls of drives from old Apple systems seem
> >like a good bet - I've used a few on various machines which need a
> >512 byte block size. I normally use an Apple CD600, but it isn't
> >quite perfect - some SGI systems don't like it for some reason
> >(others do, as does everything non-SGI I've hooked it up to)
>
> I've had very good luck with an external Panasonic 4x CD-ROM drive I
> purchased new in '95 for my PowerBook 520c. It has worked on
> everything I've connected it to. I've used it on both a Mac and PC
> laptop, and on numerous DEC, SUN, and Amiga systems. My only SGI
> systems have built in CD-ROM's. Another likely source would be old
> Sun Hardware.
>
Maybe I've just been really lucky, but I've been using a Toshiba 40x SCSI
cdrom in Sony external case to boot Suns, SGIs, and Macs for quite some
time. It also works great on my Amigas and PCs. I read all this about using
old drives, but then just gave the Toshiba a shot, and it's worked ever
since. As a bonus, being a (somewhat, maybe 5 or 6 years old) recent drive,
it reads CD-R copies of discs so I can leave the originals in safekeeping.
Guess I just lucked out and it supports 512-byte blocks?
Mike
Zane,
After erasing thousands of eproms, I have not experienced a maximum ttme.
You can try to erase them again. I personally have left eproms under an
eraser for days, with no ill effects on the eproms.
If another tour under the eraser doesn't work, then you have two bad eproms.
Over the years, I made a living replacing defective eproms on telecom
equipment.
If they do erase, mark them, because my experience tells me they will fail
when trying to reprogram. Or they would be a good starting point for board
failure troubleshooting and repair.
phil
Antonio Carlini wrote:
> Arno Kletzander wrote:
> > Hmm. One half of the base board does however have circuitry connected
> > to those pads that are just linked by grant continuity traces on the
> > second half (and the 4-plane memory boards), so I figured it might
> > actually be doing something useful with it. Haven't studied the
> > technical description yet...
>
> The QVSS and QDSS will be passing the grant signals along otherwise
> boards further down the bus will have issues.
That is the very point I am disputing - in order to just _pass along_ the
signals, you only need a _trace_ from the pad where the signal enters the
board to the one where it leaves again. This is what the video memory boards do.
OTOH, if the pads carrying the grant signals in and out aren't just shorted together but _connected to the electronics_, as they are on the video master board, chances are the board is _actually using_, i.e. monitoring or (more likely in this case) influencing those signals at some time.
> Don't let me stop you trading up to a TK70, but FWIW I never had an
> issue with TK50s. I prefer TK70s but that's because I can get about
> three times as much on them!
Getting media might end up being more of a problem in both cases, I assume...
ISTR that a TK70 should work in place of a TK50, but I assume I won't get the full capacity without the corresponding controller; coming to think of it, I also have use for a TK50 anyway because I have that TK50-Z SCSI enclosure (minus drive) at home and I found out that a TK70's front bezel won't fit into the panel cut-out.
--
Arno Kletzander
Stud. Hilfskraft Informatik Sammlung Erlangen
www.iser.uni-erlangen.de
GMX FreeMail: 1 GB Postfach, 5 E-Mail-Adressen, 10 Free SMS.
Alle Infos und kostenlose Anmeldung: http://www.gmx.net/de/go/freemail
>
>Subject: RE: Anyone collect Dec/Compaq Alphaservers or VAXen?
> From: "Rod Smallwood" <RodSmallwood at mail.ediconsulting.co.uk>
> Date: Wed, 03 Oct 2007 07:00:06 +0100
> To: "General Discussion: On-Topic Posts Only" <cctech at classiccmp.org>
>
>
>Now there's a story. ...
Only part of it. Both MicroVAX-IIs were enabled by DEC but at the time
were minimal machines (BA23 had RD53 and BA123 only had RD54). It was
post DEC and many finds later they became filled with ram and better disks.
the big thig was not the hardware but a set of TK50s with V5.44 and
a nontransferable non expiring license for it and all the layered apps.
VIDSYS:: is a 5.44 node for that reason with things like Pathworks
and VAXnotes.
The 11T03 was exactly that, the big find if one was the RL02/RL21 in it.
Years later (post DEC) I put in 11/23B, then 11/73, more ram and built
the MFM disk shelf supported by RQDX3.
>Luckily (or unluckily) I had moved on from DEC by 1985 so I was not a
>witness to its sad demise.
It was bloody.
>Better made products you could not want for.
>
>Despite having worked with PC's for many years. I could never see how
>they became preferred over central unit plus terminals for general
>business use.
We agree. IN reality they did exactly that. Save for the central system
is now called "server" and the terminals are smarter.
>My modest collection has beeen accrued of the last couple of years.
>Apart from the 11/94's
>(Some potato head stole the CPU cards before I got to the machines) the
>rest of it is running/will run. I need KDJ 11 processors for the
>11/94's. They are expensive and even those intended for 11/84's are
>silly prices.
Yes even Qbus J-11 cpus are scarce.
>I also have three small Sun systems (I can't resist quality engineering)
I had suns as well and gave them away to concentrate more on DEC and the
CP/M systems.
Allison
>
>Rod
>
>
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org
>[mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Allison
>Sent: 02 October 2007 14:46
>To: cctech at classiccmp.org
>Subject: RE: Anyone collect Dec/Compaq Alphaservers or VAXen?
>
>>
>>Subject: RE: Anyone collect Dec/Compaq Alphaservers or VAXen?
>> From: "Rod Smallwood" <RodSmallwood at mail.ediconsulting.co.uk>
>> Date: Tue, 02 Oct 2007 07:08:33 +0100
>> To: "General Discussion: On-Topic Posts Only"
>><cctech at classiccmp.org>
>>
>>Hmmm
>> Time for a quick 'We are not worthy' ^00^
>
>Consider my leg pulled. :)
>
>>
>>What did you do?
>>Raid the Mill with a fleet of trucks?
>
>No. I did get some small amounts of odd items from DEC salvage before
>it was shut down. Mostly things like H751A power controllers, power
>supplies and TU58 drives and boards.
>
>The one uVII (BA123 VIDSYS::) was a parting gift(I paid 100$ for it with
>DOCS and licenses) during the days of blood. For those that don't
>understand the post 1991 sell off of parts of DEC, that's when the
>DIGITAL logo went from blue to burgandy. The other was built from
>scrounge. VIDSYS:: is still setup for DECnet area 56.920 (one area in
>OGO was 56) and HIPPY:: was area 63.390 (hidden area for DECnet
>overflow).
>
>My 11T03 which is now the 11/73 was a gift from my boss at DEC. I kept
>it in the lab area for years for those odd projects but by late 80s it
>was obvious it was getting used less and less. He suggested "when are
>you going to scrap that thing?" I bring it home (on property pass) which
>I did. A year later when it was time to confirm and renew the property
>pass his answer was "what 11?".
>
>The remainder were mostly rescues. The bulk of the uVAX3100s came from
>UV Waterloo over 10 years ago on a if you take one you take them all and
>I was the only one willing to take a huge pile of uVAX3100s plus cables,
>VT320s VS2000s, TK50s, several TLZ04s.. Took two seperate 400mile round
>trips with a pickup truck filled to capacity.
>A fair number of those got redistributed to others as sixteen uVax3100s
>take a bit of space.
>
>The rest are also rescues from various seperate trips.
>
>Usually if the system is incomplete I jump on it and clean it up and
>restore it to life from spares. The few pending systems are due to my
>activities in amateur radio this year and now that I'm done with the
>bigger projects it's back to machines.
>
>I don't do Ubus-11s, big VAX (780s and the like) and unfortunately
>PDP-10/20s as most are too large to handle or power here. Also I've
>reached the point where excess do get passed on to others as I don't
>store any large number of systems either. I try to manage my
>collection. Those excess sometimes get cleaned up board added and moved
>along so they are operable and don't end up in the trash or worse. I
>like to power them up and play and that's incompatable with storage.
>There are a few small items like extra VT320s (white, green and amber),
>VT100s, H19, DECMate-IIIs I keep in the garage on rotation but I can and
>do run them there as well as it's warm enough in the winter and very
>dry. I keep those out there mostly to make it easier to move other stuff
>around in the room. What seperates me from museum is I use them,
>reconfigure and expand them them to suit my wishes or for fun. However,
>junking them is out of the questionas even basket cases are salvaged for
>any and all usable parts.
>
>FYI: if anyone needs parts for PDT11/1xx systems I have many CPU, memory
>and IO boards I'm not ever going to use. Someone took a bunch apart and
>then later gave me the box of boards. (ugly mutter mutter cuss cuss.)
>
>I mostly do DEC and CP/M based systems (s100, totables, SBCs) but I do
>have a few oddballs. For some reason the MIPS based DEC hardware never
>got my attention nor have the PC/clone(intel) based systems like Rainbow
>and VAXmate. I did have PROs (350s and 380s) but gave those away to
>concentrate on Qbus.
>
>
>Allison
>
>>
>>Rod
>>
>>-----Original Message-----
>>From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org
>>[mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Allison
>>Sent: 01 October 2007 15:47
>>To: cctech at classiccmp.org
>>Subject: RE: Anyone collect Dec/Compaq Alphaservers or VAXen?
>>
>>>
>>>Subject: RE: Anyone collect Dec/Compaq Alphaservers or VAXen?
>>> From: "Rod Smallwood" <RodSmallwood at mail.ediconsulting.co.uk>
>>> Date: Mon, 01 Oct 2007 08:00:44 +0100
>>> To: "General Discussion: On-Topic Posts Only"
>>><cctech at classiccmp.org>
>>>
>>>
>>>My list
>>> pdp11/94 x 4 R
>>>
>>> DEC Rainbow 100+ *
>>>
>>> VAX 300 *
>>> VAX 400 *
>>> VAX 500 R
>>> VAXStation 3100 *
>>>
>>> DEC 3000 *
>>>
>>> Multia *
>>>
>>>* = Working
>>>R = Renovation (Mostly missing parts)
>>>
>>>Rod Smallwood
>>
>>
>>A more detailed list of DEC systems here. :)
>>
>>
>>Collection of operational hardware:
>>
>>PDP-8 based machines:
>>====================
>> PDP-8f, 20k core and 2 serial 8650 and 8652
>>2 Decmate-IIIs OS/278
>> Intersil sampler (6100 chipset) extended to 3k ram
>> 6120 based board, homebrew 32kram 8k rom
>>
>>PDP-11 based machines:
>>=====================
>>1 LSI-11/03 rx02
>>2 PDP11/23 BA11S boxes,
>> 1MB, RQDX2 and RD52
>> 1MB, RQDX2 and RD31, RX50
>>1 pdp11/73 50" RACK SYSTEM (4MB, DLVJ11, DEQNA, RQDX3>> RX02, RD52,
>>RX33, RL02).
>>1 BA11va with 11/23 +tu58 RT-11
>>1 BA11va with 11/23 +Viking RX02 equivilent RT-11
>> PDT11/130 11/03 with tu58 dectapeII
>> OSs in use: RT-11, XXDP-11 and unix V6
>>
>>VAX based machines:
>>===================
>> Microvax-II (ba23 based) 12mb, RQDX3, RD53, RX33
>> This one lived as HIPSS:: during my days at DEC.
>> Microvax-II/GPX (Ba123 based, TK50 and SCSI disks)
>> This one was know as VIDSYS:: inside DEC.
>>3 Microvax2000 all with 2 RD53, 1 RD54 drive, one with ultrix
>>1 Microvax2000 as hard disk formatter and MOP bootable system.
>>2 Microvax3100/m76/gpx 32mb 2 each 1gb scsi internal
>>3 Microvax3100/server (not M10e) (filled with 400mb and 1gb disks)
>>4 BA42 SCSI disk farm for the 3100s populated with RZ56s
>> OSs in use VMSv5.4-4,V5.54, V7.2, Ultrix 4.2
>>
>>Terminal for the uVAX systems is usually VT1200 via thinnet and the
>>PDP-11s the usual terminal is either VT340, VT320 or VT180 in terminal
>>mode.
>>
>>DEC CP/M speaking machines:
>>===========================
>>1 Vt180 complete (dual RX180s)
>>2 Vt180 CP/M board built up as standalone one modded for 6mhz
>>1 Vt185 Thats a Vt125 + Vt180.
>>
>>In the non operational list:
>>
>>11/23B uPDP-11 in a BA23 pedestal that while complete with 11/23B,
>>M8057 memory, DHV11, RQDX2 and RD52, RX50 it requries cleaning and
>>testing.
>>
>>H11 Backplane complete with LSI-11 CPU, 16k of ram, two serial cards
>and
>>a parallel card of heath origin. Some day I'll find the case/power
>>supply for it. All parts are tested as working.
>>
>>Small 11/23 system using a H9281-BC (12x2 slots) filled with:
>> M8186 1/23 (Overclocked CPU mod)
>> 4 M8059 MSV11 ram
>> DLV11j,
>> RQDX3 with M9058 distribution board. (for RX33 and RD31)
>> MRV-11 Eprom card with MSCP boot.
>> VK170 with matching LK02 keyboard and a monitor. The VK170
>> is a minimal VT52 on a dual width card for packaged systems
>> that communicates via RS232 to system and the bus use is
>> power only.
>>This is waiting on being packed in a reasonable nonDEC box with a DEC
>PS
>>and fans. The boards are known working and the backplane is already
>>jumpered as Q22.
>>
>>Generally in my house operational means I can actually turn it on and
>>play and it has a permanent spot that is easily accessable.
>>
>>One project that is in process is a H9800 desk/rack that will replace
>>the existing standard steel office desk. the system to be installed
>>there will be 11/23B in BA11s with a hand made Disk box for RX33 and
>>RD52s.
>>
>>I have two boxes (Xerox Paper sized) of tested boards enough to build
>>another few 11/23s and a few uVAXII as my spares. Failed boards get
>>repaird when I feel like it so I have good boards around.
>>
>>Who was it that has the SIG of
>> "DEC had then what you wish you could buy now." ?
>>
>>Allison
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
>
>
>
>Subject: Re: TI 990 architecture / was Re: TI-99/4A Floppies
> From: Martin Scott Goldberg <wgungfu at csd.uwm.edu>
> Date: Tue, 02 Oct 2007 14:47:46 -0500 (CDT)
> To: cctech at classiccmp.org
>
>>There are really three 99/4 home computers, original with chiclet keys, the
>>second and most common with a really nice keyboard and the whie version that
>>is really the same thing with a few board level cost reductions.
>>
>
>
>Actually, there's one TI-99/4 and two TI-99/4a models.
>
I know I have them but they are still software compatable and overall similar.
Allison
>
>Subject: Re: TI 990 architecture / was Re: TI-99/4A Floppies
> From: "Liam Proven" <lproven at gmail.com>
> Date: Tue, 02 Oct 2007 20:18:00 +0100
> To: "General Discussion: On-Topic Posts Only" <cctech at classiccmp.org>
>
>On 02/10/2007, Allison <ajp166 at bellatlantic.net> wrote:
>
>> The 9900 chips is not crippled, for 1976 three voltage NMOS its about as fast
>> as the technology of the time could go. The TI99/4 did however do a nasty to
>> it. One is they muxed the bus down to 8bits wide and that does slow the system
>> some. There were 128 words of ram (6810s) that if you execute there the speed
>> is noticeable. The other is the GROM (sort of an interpreted language with a
>> register point to next instruction) is a bottleneck as well. There was a
>> later 9980 and the 9985 which were a 8bit bus interface and were somewhat
>> crippled but I'd never seen one in a TI99/4A.
>
>That's probably true, but the 99/4a wasn't a 1976 machine. It was
>released in 1981 and withdrawn 1983. A bit unfairly for a tweaked 1979
>machine (the 99/a), the 99/4a's competition was mainly 1982 machines
>like the Commodore 64 and Sinclair Spectrum, which (based on my
>possibly erroneous recollection) outperformed the 99/4a significantly.
>The TI99/4 did however do a nasty to
>> it. One is they muxed the bus down to 8bits wide and that does slow the system
I requote the statement. Why? Because thats what I'd said. The basic 9900
chip was fairly fast the 99/4 computer is _not fast_ and I gave the reasons why.
Comparing it to 1980 tech just showed how badly the little console faired.
Having a 9900 system without the funky 99/4 hardware I can say the 9900 was
still not fast but faired far better against its contemporaries. The reason
it did well enough is the archetecture was very good even if 2mhz was somewhat
slow.
Allison
