30 Oct
2000
30 Oct
'00
11:43 a.m.
Someone (Paxton, I think?) wrote:
I have a SMC 2010B with a date code of 7736 in Ceramic
with gold legs.
Is this a second source of the Western Digital or something different?
I wrote:
Although SMC did second source many Western Digital
chips, this one is
about seven years too early to be the 2010 HDC.
Allison wrote:
No that would be about right for that chip... 1987.
My 1985 SMC catalong
lists
the 2010 as "preliminary".
No, that's *wrong* for that chip. Paxton's 7736 date code means 1977,
not 1987.
5.25 inch Winchester disk drives were not introduced until 1981 or so, and
the WD1010 "single-chip" controller (which it wasn't really) was several
years later, and the WD2010 was later yet.
WD started their Winchester disk support with the WD110 series MSI parts,
which together with the Signetics 8X300 processor formed the basis of
the WD1000 board-level controller. The general architecture of the
WD1000 lives on to this day (unfortunately) as the basis for the IDE (ATA)
disk interface.
As regards the WD2010, I don't have my SMC data books handy, but I expect
SMC must have done one of:
1) not second-sourced the 2010
2) second-sourced it with a different number
3) reused the part number (disgusting, but it's been known to happen)
I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't second-source it, since they
second-sourced the NEC 7261 (and several variants), and designed
several of their own.
Eric