Minor Tektronix success story. - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

20 Aug 1998

At 04:52 PM 8/20/98 -0500, you wrote:
...
 Jeff wrote:

  Yow!!!  That means maybe it will run FLEX!
[insert Homer Simpson 
 impersonation] 
Could someone please enlighten me... What, pray, is FLEX? 
For years, it was *THE* disk operating system if you had a 6800/6802 based
system.  Originally written in the late 70's, it powered the majority of
the SS-50 computers until the 6809 came out.  Then came FLEX/09, StarDOS,
UniFLEX, OS/9. . . .

There were other (some better) DOS's that were available at the time from
Smoke Signal, Moto, and a couple of others, but FLEX gained alot of support
...
 from developers, and had alot of applications.  I'm
trying to get one of my s-50's working again so I can play with FLEX (I
won't settle for emulation
when I can have the *real* thing).

It was a bit limited, but it was small enough to fit within the 6800's 64K
address space, with *plenty* of room to spare!

...
 > Woo Hoo!.  Dang!  I can just imagine running FLEX
at 25Mc!  Its performance 
...
   over a 1Mc
6800 must have been blistering! 
Warning.  Clock speeds may not be comparable.  6800 and friends 
(including 6502) often do more per cycle than 2901s. 
Well, yeah, but still faster then 1Mc (or 800kc if you didn't modify the
cpu board).

...
 That said, the 4052 is a 16 bit system, despite its
8-bit instruction 
set.  The data path is 16 bit throughout, it fetches two byte 
instructions in a single memory cycle, etc. 
OIC

...
 And Tek do claim some quite impressive performance
boosts upgrading from 
4051 to 4052 (average gain they claimed was ten times, I think) 
Yeah, still pretty hot s---.

...
   Yikes!! I
think I may have seen some boards from a system like that one 
 in a junk heap last week!  It used four 2901's eh?  Hm, I'm gonna haveto 
 revisit that particular junque pile . . . 
Bear in mind Tony Duell's comments - 16 bit systems based around 4 2901s 
used to be common, but may now be worth grabbing anyway. 
Umm, yeah, but being a 6800 enthusiast, this carries with it some
especially interesting possibilities!  

...
 I must do some more research into the relationship
between 4052 and 6800 
instruction sets. 
Yes.  How the implemented the microcode would be of particular interest.

Jeff 