17 Jul
2014
17 Jul
'14
8:24 a.m.
From: Paul Koning <paulkoning at comcast.net>
Date: Wed, 16 Jul 2014 17:33:02 -0400
Subject: Re: Yet Another FPGA VAX Discussion
Also Futurebus. Or did that never make it out the door? I remember a pile of work on
that. Very strange bus, not well named. :-)
paul
I worked on the original IEEE-896 Futurebus standard and the updated
Futurebus+ that DEC used. I think that it was used on the VAX 10000
and 7000. They made the DWLAA Futurebus+ bridge and the DEFAA-YA FDDI
board for Futurebus+.
I have the DEC tutorial book on Futurebus+.
--
Michael Thompson
17 Jul
17 Jul
1:02 p.m.
On Thu, Jul 17, 2014 at 8:24 AM, Michael Thompson
<michael.99.thompson at gmail.com> wrote:
It's also in the DEC 4000 AXP
(http://www.old-computers.com/museum/photos.asp?t=1&c=895&st=1) I
have one. It used to run the Ohio State University library electronic
card catalog (OSCAR). Got it for $50 from Uni Surplus (because it
came with a TSZ07 SCSI 9-track, which I've used 100X more than the
AXP).
The 4000 AXP seems like a fine machine, but I don't need something
that large running OpenVMS. I'd rather spend the electrons on a VAX.
-ethan
Also
Futurebus. Or did that never make it out the door?
I worked on the original IEEE-896 Futurebus standard and the updated
Futurebus+ that DEC used. I think that it was used on the VAX 10000
and 7000. They made the DWLAA Futurebus+ bridge and the DEFAA-YA FDDI
board for Futurebus+. 
1:35 p.m.
Wasn't FutureBus the "bus to end all busses?"
On 17 July 2014 11:02, Ethan Dicks <ethan.dicks at gmail.com> wrote:
On Thu, Jul 17, 2014 at 8:24 AM, Michael Thompson
<michael.99.thompson at gmail.com> wrote:
It's also in the DEC 4000 AXP
(http://www.old-computers.com/museum/photos.asp?t=1&c=895&st=1) I
have one. It used to run the Ohio State University library electronic
card catalog (OSCAR). Got it for $50 from Uni Surplus (because it
came with a TSZ07 SCSI 9-track, which I've used 100X more than the
AXP).
The 4000 AXP seems like a fine machine, but I don't need something
that large running OpenVMS. I'd rather spend the electrons on a VAX.
-ethan
--
Thanks,
Kevin
Also
Futurebus. Or did that never make it out the door?
I worked on the original IEEE-896 Futurebus standard and the updated
Futurebus+ that DEC used. I think that it was used on the VAX 10000
and 7000. They made the DWLAA Futurebus+ bridge and the DEFAA-YA FDDI
board for Futurebus+.
3:51 p.m.
Ha!
In all seriousness, what I was referring to was what I had read about
it awhile ago on Wikipedia,
"[Futurebus] intended to replace all local bus connections in a
computer, including the CPU, memory, plug-in cards and even, to some
extent, LAN links between machines."
How accurate is that statement? There doesn't appear to be any citation.
On 17 July 2014 11:57, Ethan Dicks <ethan.dicks at gmail.com> wrote:
On Thu, Jul 17, 2014 at 1:35 PM, Kevin Keith
<krfkeith at gmail.com> wrote:
--
Thanks,
Kevin
Wasn't FutureBus the "bus to end all
busses?"
*looks around for new DEC hardware with a bus architecture*
Hmm...maybe it was!
-ethan 
3:58 p.m.
On Jul 17, 2014, at 3:51 PM, Kevin Keith <krfkeith at gmail.com> wrote:
Ha!
In all seriousness, what I was referring to was what I had read about
it awhile ago on Wikipedia,
"[Futurebus] intended to replace all local bus connections in a
computer, including the CPU, memory, plug-in cards and even, to some
extent, LAN links between machines."
How accurate is that statement? There doesn't appear to be any citation.
Wow.
I never heard any such thing. If I had heard the part about LAN links I would have
laughed the speaker out of the room. In my (not very intense) involvement with
Futurebus+, it felt like an I/O bus, like BI and XMI etc. but based on an international
standard rather than an internal design.
We did some interesting things for this, because (from what we were told) it was important
to avoid memory reads if possible. So we constructed some novel host <-> device
interface data structures that used writes almost exclusively, much more so than, say, a
classic descriptor ring (as found in Lance).
paul
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