7 Aug
2006
7 Aug
'06
9:16 a.m.
On 8/7/2006 at 2:12 AM CRC wrote:
In the early '80s we started development of a
process controller and
evaluated the 68K as well as the National 32K processor which had
been just released. The NS 32K processor was released with a FP unit
which we required while Moto didn't get around to getting one to
market for another year - the 68K on software just didn't hack it. We
went with the NS 32K and were quite pleased with the beast.
I'll concur with your assessment of the NS 32K processors and the huge
marketing mess they made of it. We'd evaluated the 8086, 68K and Z8000 and
were very excited to see a processor with a well-thought out architecture
like the NS 32K. We were pitched by NS's marketing, only to discover that
the chips would be sampled "Real Soon Now". After awhile, our decision
window passed and we selected the 80186 (of which Intel was delighted to
supply us samples of well in advance of the official release, bugs and
all). NS's sales force remained generally opaque and ignorant. It's no
wonder that for many years the only thing that kept National going was
second-sourcing of commodity chips.
I used to have a CPU S100 board that I built for the National PACE. That
CPU was a catastrophe. So slow and with very little NS support. Given
its very early introduction, it could have been a comer had NS taken any
interest in it. But at the time, NS was pushing the SC/MP and signing
second-sourcing deals.
Anyone remember AMC? A coop venture of AMD and Siemens (and maybe another
firm) to push the Z8000 with development tools? I still have a binder full
of documentation for their assembler. IIRC, it didn't last long.
Cheers,
Chuck