19 Mar
2009
19 Mar
'09
10:52 p.m.
On Fri, Mar 20, 2009 at 12:57 AM, Michael Hart <imsaicollector at yahoo.com> wrote:
Now that you mentioned I think I may revisit making a
16MB board for the S100 bus for my upcoming LINUX port. The amount of headache I am having
getting what I want is becoming a bit too much.
I'm interested in hearing more about your Linux port. I don't have
any S-100 stuff (I gave away everything I got from Software Results
years ago), but I do still have a pile of our 68000 and 68010-based
products, the schematics, PAL equations, application and firmware
source, etc. I have enough boards that if there was something
interesting to do with them (besides being intelligent Qbus, Unibus
and VAXBI synchronous serial controllers), I could blow some new
firmware and turn them into hobby boards.
As it is, all of our products were designed to have a "payload"
application dumped onto them when starting a new serial link, so the
ROM code is pretty much only smart enough for simple diagnostics and
receiving a new "front end program". We didn't have an OS, just a
monolithic app for each board and serial protocol (HASP, 3780, and SNA
PU Type 2). The earliest boards (c. 1982) really just run a state
machine written in assembler to pump serial streams out the serial
chip and blocked data over the Unibus DMA interface, and occasionally
something out the printer port. Later stuff got much more involved
and had much more memory, more ports, etc.
With all that time spent in that realm, I'm always interested in
hearing what folks are doing with the 68K.
-ethan