5 Sep
2007
5 Sep
'07
7:15 a.m.
I don't suppose anybody knows where one would dig up old unixes for 8086
or 80286 based PCs? Source would be a big bonus. I've been playing
with the bcc compiler and the V7 source and just curious what "real"
ports looked like.
Thanks!
Brian
5 Sep
5 Sep
7:21 a.m.
Brian Wheeler wrote:
I don't suppose anybody knows where one would dig
up old unixes for 8086
or 80286 based PCs? Source would be a big bonus. I've been playing
with the bcc compiler and the V7 source and just curious what "real"
ports looked like.
Try Minix or ELKS. I don't know if either of them could be considered
"UNIX Ports" specifically, but I've used both and they work well enough.
Peace... Sridhar
7:47 a.m.
Have you seen Coherent ?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coherent_%28operating_system%29
Paco
On 9/5/07, Brian Wheeler <bdwheele at indiana.edu> wrote:
I don't suppose anybody knows where one would dig up old unixes for 8086
or 80286 based PCs? Source would be a big bonus. I've been playing
with the bcc compiler and the V7 source and just curious what "real"
ports looked like.
Thanks!
Brian
7:49 a.m.
On Wed, 2007-09-05 at 16:47 +0200, Paco Linux wrote:
Have you seen Coherent ?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coherent_%28operating_system%29
I completely forgot about them... thanks!
Brian
Paco
On 9/5/07, Brian Wheeler <bdwheele at indiana.edu> wrote:
>
> I don't suppose anybody knows where one would dig up old unixes for 8086
> or 80286 based PCs? Source would be a big bonus. I've been playing
> with the bcc compiler and the V7 source and just curious what "real"
> ports looked like.
>
> Thanks!
> Brian
>
>
>
7:49 a.m.
Also, you can look the source of ultrix
ftp://ifctfvax.harhan.org/pub/UNIX/thirdparty/Ultrix-32/sources/ (not x86
code, vax and mips code)
Paco
On 9/5/07, Brian Wheeler <bdwheele at indiana.edu> wrote:
I don't suppose anybody knows where one would dig up old unixes for 8086
or 80286 based PCs? Source would be a big bonus. I've been playing
with the bcc compiler and the V7 source and just curious what "real"
ports looked like.
Thanks!
Brian
9:11 a.m.
On 5 Sep 2007 at 10:15, Brian Wheeler wrote:
I don't suppose anybody knows where one would dig
up old unixes for 8086
or 80286 based PCs? Source would be a big bonus. I've been playing
with the bcc compiler and the V7 source and just curious what "real"
ports looked like.
If my memory serves, the first ports of Unix for the 80286 weren't
for the PC/AT (i.e. earlier) and were for Xenix, not Unix (yes, I
know, a minor quibble). It was an odd arrangement--Microsoft was
working on the utilities, etc. and Intel was working on the kernel
code. The whole affair seemed to take forever.
Cheers,
Chuck
10:14 a.m.
Chuck Guzis wrote:
If my memory serves, the first ports of Unix for the
80286 weren't
for the PC/AT (i.e. earlier) and were for Xenix, not Unix (yes, I
know, a minor quibble). It was an odd arrangement--Microsoft was
working on the utilities, etc. and Intel was working on the kernel
code. The whole affair seemed to take forever
Well once Intel gets the bugs out of the 80286 I am sure M$ will
get the real programs like BASIC for Xenix. :)
Did not Xenix follow the Small 8086 model - 64K data & 64K code?
Cheers,
Chuck
Ben alias woodelf.
10:46 a.m.
--- woodelf <bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca> wrote:
Chuck Guzis wrote:
Do you mean like development systems? I'm not aware
of any pre-AT '286's - not saying there weren't any.
They seem to have less exposure then pre-5150 Intel
stuph.
If my memory serves, the first ports of Unix for
the 80286 weren't
for the PC/AT (i.e. earlier) and were for Xenix,
not Unix (yes, I
know, a minor quibble). It was an odd
arrangement--Microsoft was
working on the utilities, etc. and Intel was
working on the kernel
> code. The whole affair seemed to take forever Well once Intel gets the bugs out of the 80286 I am
sure M$ will
get the real programs like BASIC for Xenix. :)
Did not Xenix follow the Small 8086 model - 64K data
& 64K code?
Dunno. Let's not forget - and here's where I get
tarred and feathered - early *servers* like the
Televideo Personal Mini and Northstar Dimension (both
sporting 80186's) for instance. They ran OEM versions
of Netware. Like UNIX internally - I can't really say,
but a lot of the utilitarian stuff was UNIXY at least.
I have a PM/16t, but the disks are bad :(. Need them!
I haven't rigged a terminal up to it yet, so can't say
if the hd is loopy. I bet it is - ~235$ and all the
idiot used for packing was a couple of scraps of
newspaper. Got a line on a NS Dimension. Inoperable.
Don't know about software. I need these folks
*whimpers*.
There was a *version* of UNIX specific to the NEC APC
III (was anything like it available for the APC
*1*???).
I have Tanenbaum's first book, but it's in storage in
Pennsylhoma. Not quite sure when I'll be up that way,
but *possibly* it could be as early as this weekend
(no promises though). It's in great shape, but has a
razored spine. It's yours for the cost of shipping.
Sources included. Yay.
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11:02 a.m.
On 5 Sep 2007 at 10:46, Chris M wrote:
Do you mean like development systems? I'm not
aware
of any pre-AT '286's - not saying there weren't any.
They seem to have less exposure then pre-5150 Intel
stuph.
Definitely were. I worked on the port for the Durango Poppy, for
example, using early steppings of the 80286. Interesting thing is
that pre-production silicon was available on the 286 and the 186 at
about the same time.
I wonder if there were any 80286 coprocessor plug-in boards for the
XT before the AT?
Did Compupro and/or Altos have a pre-PC-AT 80286 system out? I think
so.
Cheers,
Chuck
11:10 a.m.
--- Chuck Guzis <cclist at sydex.com> wrote:
On 5 Sep 2007 at 10:46, Chris M wrote:
Yes that does seem to be true. Was the 80186 actually
intended for embedded applications? It readily found
it's way into that market (probably weren't too many
embedded controllers when it was introduced though).
Do you mean like development systems? I'm
not
aware
of any pre-AT '286's - not saying there
weren't
any.
They seem to have less exposure then pre-5150
Intel
stuph.
Definitely were. I worked on the port for the
Durango Poppy, for
example, using early steppings of the 80286.
Interesting thing is
that pre-production silicon was available on the 286
and the 186 at
about the same time. I wonder if there were any 80286 coprocessor plug-in
boards for the
XT before the AT?
I'm guessing so, w/o specific knowledge. One of the
first though was the Orchid Turbo-186, but was
revamped with a '286 before very long. There were
patents assigned to the original board:
www.freepatentsonline.com/4799150.html
funny, Google's cached deposits are as slow as the
original server's.
Here's a neato question: You mentioned coprocessor
boards, and in fact some kinda sorta functioned that
way (in some sense - stuff got offloaded to the mpu on
the board I guess). But what were some early ancillary
processor boards for the pc/at/?. That is, where you
plugged a whole 'nother puter into your main puter,
and got to run separate apps off of that? Hmmmmm
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10:31 p.m.
On Wednesday 05 September 2007 14:10, Chris M wrote:
Here's a neato question: You mentioned
coprocessor
boards, and in fact some kinda sorta functioned that
way (in some sense - stuff got offloaded to the mpu on
the board I guess). But what were some early ancillary
processor boards for the pc/at/?. That is, where you
plugged a whole 'nother puter into your main puter,
and got to run separate apps off of that? Hmmmmm
I'm remembering a couple of those in Byte, which I stopped reading sometime
in the eighties. A 32032? (I never could keep the numbers of that family
straight). A Z8000 for sure. Maybe a 68K of some sort. It's all very
fuzzy...
--
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space, ?a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed. ?--Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
-
Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James
M Dakin
6 Sep
6 Sep
4:11 a.m.
Roy J. Tellason wrote:
On Wednesday 05 September 2007 14:10, Chris M wrote:
I've got a couple of ISA boards here with ARM1 processors on; one has Acorn
Podule bus hardware fitted so that in theory it can interact with
Acorn-specific expansion cards.
I'm jumping in here mid-thread though so have lost some of the context - I
can't think of a scenario where you plugged an entire machine (implying things
like keyboard and video interfaces too) into an AT, but there were certainly
all sorts of cards of the "CPU/memory/ROM/ISA interface" around onto which
code could be offloaded.
I suppose the question is: "when is a coprocessor card not a computer"? :-)
cheers
Jules
--
"What progress. It's almost as good as taping it... on tapes which self
destruct in seven days."
- Bill Bailey on the BBC's "watch again" service
Here's a neato question: You mentioned
coprocessor
boards, and in fact some kinda sorta functioned that
way (in some sense - stuff got offloaded to the mpu on
the board I guess). But what were some early ancillary
processor boards for the pc/at/?. That is, where you
plugged a whole 'nother puter into your main puter,
and got to run separate apps off of that? Hmmmmm
I'm remembering a couple of those in Byte, which I stopped reading sometime
in the eighties. A 32032? (I never could keep the numbers of that family
straight). A Z8000 for sure. Maybe a 68K of some sort. It's all very
fuzzy...
12:24 p.m.
--- Jules Richardson <julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk>
wrote:
I'm jumping in here mid-thread though so have
lost
some of the context - I
can't think of a scenario where you plugged an
entire machine (implying things
like keyboard and video interfaces too) into an AT,
but there were certainly
all sorts of cards of the "CPU/memory/ROM/ISA
interface" around onto which
code could be offloaded.
What was the purpose of offloading in this context?
Simply acceleration? No, I can't think of any "whole
puters" that could get plugged into a pc or at either,
just thought I'd ask. But keep in mind you don't
really need a distinct k/b and screen to do that.
Years later they were quite common. I think it was
Orange Micro or AST that came out w/286 Nubus cards
for the early Nubus equipped Macs. I never bothered to
get mine working, but I'm guessing the environment ran
in a window on the Mac desktop.
Nevertheless I think it would be very kewell to plug
a whole 'nother puter into something vintij. Very kewell.
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6:25 p.m.
On 06/09/07, Chris M <chrism3667 at yahoo.com> wrote:
--- Jules Richardson <julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk>
wrote:
I've seen and played with such things, and yes, it did. VirtualPC,
done in hardware. Not very good graphics compatibility, generally -
CGA was typical, and often it was just BIOS-compatible, not hardware
or register level.
I'm jumping in here mid-thread though so have
lost
some of the context - I
can't think of a scenario where you plugged an
entire machine (implying things
like keyboard and video interfaces too) into an AT,
but there were certainly
all sorts of cards of the "CPU/memory/ROM/ISA
interface" around onto which
code could be offloaded.
What was the purpose of offloading in this context?
Simply acceleration? No, I can't think of any "whole
puters" that could get plugged into a pc or at either,
just thought I'd ask. But keep in mind you don't
really need a distinct k/b and screen to do that.
Years later they were quite common. I think it was
Orange Micro or AST that came out w/286 Nubus cards
for the early Nubus equipped Macs. I never bothered to
get mine working, but I'm guessing the environment ran
in a window on the Mac desktop. Nevertheless I think it would be very kewell to plug
a whole 'nother puter into something vintij. Very kewell.
There was also the Golden Gate 386, a PC on a card for an Amiga:
http://www.amiga-hardware.com/showhardware.cgi?HARDID=348
There was the Amiga Sidecar:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiga_Sidecar
And the Siamese system, which linked a real Amiga to a PC via an ISA
card to turn a PC into an Amiga-compatible:
http://www.users.dircon.co.uk/~pnolan/siamese.html
There was the QXL and QXL2, Sinclair QL-compatibles on an ISA card,
using the PC as a host and for I/O:
http://sinclairql.emuunlim.com/hardware.html
ISTR an Amiga version of something like this but I can't recall any
details, alas.
--
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9:49 p.m.
Hi,
There was the QXL and QXL2, Sinclair QL-compatibles
on
an ISA card, using the PC as a host and for I/O....
ISTR an Amiga version of something like this but I
can't
recall any details, alas.
I know that there exists an Atari ST on a PCI (or ISA?) card....don't know
any more than that really (other that it's possibly from a German company)
since I got out of the ST "scene" *many* moons ago.
TTFN - Pete.
7 Sep
7 Sep
1:08 a.m.
On Fri, 7 Sep 2007 05:49:16 +0100, Ensor wrote:
Hi,
> There was the QXL and QXL2, Sinclair
QL-compatibles on
>an ISA card, using the PC as a host and for I/O....
> ISTR an Amiga version of something like this but
I can't
>recall any details, alas.
I know that there exists an Atari ST on a PCI (or ISA?)
card....don't know
any more than that really (other that it's possibly from a German company)
since I got out of the ST "scene" *many* moons ago.
There's at least the Janus card, which implements a basic Atari ST on an ISA board
...
... i own the 68000 version, but it seems, there was an 68020 version available too.
A DOS based driver is available, that handles all the I/O handling via the PC. I always
wanted to get that driver ported to OS/2 (running Atari SW in a OS/2 PM-Window is
definitely amazing :)), but never got any technical information ...
Ciao Bernd
3:38 p.m.
There was the QXL and QXL2, Sinclair QL-compatibles on
an ISA card,
using the PC as a host and for I/O:
http://sinclairql.emuunlim.com/hardware.html
ISTR an Amiga version of something like this but I can't recall any
details, alas.
Has anyone mentioned the Apple-][-on-an-ISA-card yet? There were at least
2 of them, they connected to the disk drives and CGA card too, and let
you run Apple ][ software on a PC system, copy files between PC and Apple
disks, etc.
And I think there was an ARM-2 development system on an ISA card. Never
seen it, though
-tony
4:32 p.m.
On Fri, 7 Sep 2007, Tony Duell wrote:
Has anyone mentioned the Apple-][-on-an-ISA-card yet?
There were at least
2 of them, they connected to the disk drives and CGA card too, and let
you run Apple ][ software on a PC system, copy files between PC and Apple
disks, etc.
Quadlink from Quadram: We had a 70% DOA rate on about 3 dozen, including
70% DOA rate on the replacements, including connectors installed wrong
(such that the board could not be installed)
Diamond Trackstar 128: for a while was available through Radio Shack
10 Sep
10 Sep
4:52 p.m.
Tony Duell wrote:
And I think there was an ARM-2 development system on
an ISA card. Never
seen it, though
Looking at a photo of one of mine (the one with the additional I/O controller
and Acorn bus connector), it seems to be an ARM2 CPU - not an ARM1 as I'd
remembered. (At least Google gives the impression that the VL-2333 chip is a
second-generation).
I think I even have software for it. Unfortunately I'm not sure that I have
the firmware, which makes it a little bit useless :-) (Given that it seems to
use a standard TUBE ULA to communicate with the ISA bus, I suppose there's a
very slim chance that it'll work with Acorn's 'Brazil' ROMs from some of
their
other early/dev hardware, but I wouldn't hold my breath...)
5:30 p.m.
On 11/09/2007, Jules Richardson <julesrichardsonuk at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
Tony Duell wrote:
Wasn't there an ARM "accelerator" for PCs, called the Springboard
IIRC? Most of an Archimedes' core logic, but no sound/display or
storage, on a big ISA board.
[Googles]
Here we go...
http://acorn.chriswhy.co.uk/docs/Mags/PCW/PCW_Jan88_Springboard.pdf
--
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Tel: +44 20-8685-0498 ? Cell: +44 7939-087884 ? Fax: + 44 870-9151419
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Yahoo: liamproven at yahoo.co.uk ? Skype: liamproven ? ICQ: 73187508
And I think there was an ARM-2 development system
on an ISA card. Never
seen it, though
Looking at a photo of one of mine (the one with the additional I/O controller
and Acorn bus connector), it seems to be an ARM2 CPU - not an ARM1 as I'd
remembered. (At least Google gives the impression that the VL-2333 chip is a
second-generation).
I think I even have software for it. Unfortunately I'm not sure that I have
the firmware, which makes it a little bit useless :-) (Given that it seems to
use a standard TUBE ULA to communicate with the ISA bus, I suppose there's a
very slim chance that it'll work with Acorn's 'Brazil' ROMs from some of
their
other early/dev hardware, but I wouldn't hold my breath...)
11 Sep
11 Sep
1:05 p.m.
Tony Duell wrote:
What's the difference between an ARM1 and ARM2? I only have ARM 2
datasheets.
Certainly when I was looking at the ARM1 evaluation system I have for the
Beebm the pinouts of the ARM1 processor seemed identical to those of the
ARM2. Maybe the PC card could take either CPU.
-tony
And I think there was an ARM-2 development system
on an ISA card. Never
seen it, though
Looking at a photo of one of mine (the one with the additional I/O controller
and Acorn bus connector), it seems to be an ARM2 CPU - not an ARM1 as I'd
remembered. (At least Google gives the impression that the VL-2333 chip is a
second-generation). 
6 Sep
6 Sep
7:22 a.m.
On Sep 6, 2007, at 1:31 AM, Roy J. Tellason wrote:
Steve Ciarcia did a Z8000 card as a project in BYTE, called Trump
Card.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
Farewell Ophelia, 9/22/1991 - 7/25/2007
Here's a
neato question: You mentioned coprocessor
boards, and in fact some kinda sorta functioned that
way (in some sense - stuff got offloaded to the mpu on
the board I guess). But what were some early ancillary
processor boards for the pc/at/?. That is, where you
plugged a whole 'nother puter into your main puter,
and got to run separate apps off of that? Hmmmmm
I'm remembering a couple of those in Byte, which I stopped reading
sometime
in the eighties. A 32032? (I never could keep the numbers of that
family
straight). A Z8000 for sure. Maybe a 68K of some sort. It's all very
fuzzy...
12:26 p.m.
--- Dave McGuire <mcguire at neurotica.com> wrote:
Steve Ciarcia did a Z8000 card as a project in
BYTE, called Trump
Card.
Hmm. I don't think I'm in error, but I hope my
previous post wasn't referring to this. I remember
*something* appearing in BYTE w/a 68020. Rather into
the later 80's...
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2:02 p.m.
Chris M wrote:
--- Dave McGuire <mcguire at neurotica.com>
wrote:
I kind of dumped Steve after he did his PC clone. :(
Too bad 68000's and 8088's are the only cpu's that
hit the home market. Now I find out about the better
chips.
Ben alias Woodelf.
Steve Ciarcia did a Z8000 card as a project
in
BYTE, called Trump
Card.
Hmm. I don't think I'm in error, but I hope my
previous post wasn't referring to this. I remember
*something* appearing in BYTE w/a 68020. Rather into
the later 80's...
2:57 p.m.
--- woodelf <bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca> wrote:
I kind of dumped Steve after he did his PC clone. :(
Too bad 68000's and 8088's are the only cpu's that
hit the home market. Now I find out about the better
chips.
Um, wasn't that like 1982?
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4:14 p.m.
On Sep 6, 2007, at 5:02 PM, woodelf wrote:
Well his column in BYTE didn't last a whole lot longer than that.
His magazine, however, is something that I'd skip meals in order to
keep receiving.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
Farewell Ophelia, 9/22/1991 - 7/25/2007
Hmm. I
don't think I'm in error, but I hope my
previous post wasn't referring to this. I remember
*something* appearing in BYTE w/a 68020. Rather into
the later 80's...
I kind of dumped Steve after he did his PC clone. :(
4:29 p.m.
Dave McGuire wrote:
Well his column in BYTE didn't last a whole lot longer than that. His
magazine, however, is something that I'd skip meals in order to keep
receiving.
GRAND-MA ... Eat Grandson, Eat you are getting thin, Eat.
-Dave
Well BYTE may have lasted longer, but then it was not SMALL
SYSTEMS ... but Me the PeeCee.
Ben alias Grandma
PS. Grandma's favorite nine letter word: Eat-Eat-Eat ('~)
4:36 p.m.
On Sep 6, 2007, at 7:29 PM, woodelf wrote:
Oh, I am NOT getting thin. ;)
Well his
column in BYTE didn't last a whole lot longer than
that. His magazine, however, is something that I'd skip meals in
order to keep receiving.
GRAND-MA ... Eat Grandson, Eat you are getting thin, Eat. Well BYTE may have lasted longer, but then it was not
SMALL
SYSTEMS ... but Me the PeeCee.
Ben alias Grandma
PS. Grandma's favorite nine letter word: Eat-Eat-Eat ('~)
Yep. BYTE changed from a respectable technical magazine to a PC
sales rag. Very sad.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
Farewell Ophelia, 9/22/1991 - 7/25/2007
4:06 p.m.
On Sep 6, 2007, at 3:26 PM, Chris M wrote:
I have (I think) everything Ciarcia has ever written...I don't
think he ever did anything with the 68020.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
Farewell Ophelia, 9/22/1991 - 7/25/2007
Steve
Ciarcia did a Z8000 card as a project in
BYTE, called Trump
Card.
Hmm. I don't think I'm in error, but I hope my
previous post wasn't referring to this. I remember
*something* appearing in BYTE w/a 68020. Rather into
the later 80's...
4:10 p.m.
--- Dave McGuire <mcguire at neurotica.com> wrote:
I have (I think) everything Ciarcia has ever
written...I don't
think he ever did anything with the 68020.
Hmm. I would think it had to be him. I hope I wasn't
just reading a product review.
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4:13 p.m.
--- Dave McGuire <mcguire at neurotica.com> wrote:
I have (I think) everything Ciarcia has ever
written...I don't
think he ever did anything with the 68020.
this is probably it:
http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=19038.
19042&coll=GUIDE&dl=GUIDE&CFID=28963802&CFTOKEN=27219755
I guess it was SC after all...
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7 Sep
7 Sep
8:07 a.m.
On Sep 6, 2007, at 7:13 PM, Chris M wrote:
I assume you meant "wasn't"?
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
Farewell Ophelia, 9/22/1991 - 7/25/2007
I have (I
think) everything Ciarcia has ever
written...I don't
think he ever did anything with the 68020.
this is probably it:
http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=19038.
19042&coll=GUIDE&dl=GUIDE&CFID=28963802&CFTOKEN=27219755
I guess it was SC after all...
1 a.m.
On Thu, 6 Sep 2007 12:26:24 -0700 (PDT), Chris M wrote:
--- Dave McGuire <mcguire at neurotica.com>
wrote:
> Steve Ciarcia did a Z8000 card as a project in
> BYTE, called Trump
> Card.
Hmm. I don't think I'm in error, but I hope
my
previous post wasn't referring to this. I remember
*something* appearing in BYTE w/a 68020. Rather into
the later 80's...
I think, those were the Definicon DSI cards ...
Ciao Bernd
6 Sep
6 Sep
4:04 p.m.
On Thursday 06 September 2007 10:22, Dave McGuire wrote:
On Sep 6, 2007, at 1:31 AM, Roy J. Tellason wrote:
Steve Ciarcia did a Z8000 card as a project in BYTE, called Trump
Card.
That's probably the one I'm remembering, then. That was a better magazine
before he left...
--
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space, ?a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed. ?--Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
-
Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James
M Dakin
Here's a neato question: You mentioned coprocessor
boards, and in fact some kinda sorta functioned that
way (in some sense - stuff got offloaded to the mpu on
the board I guess). But what were some early ancillary
processor boards for the pc/at/?. That is, where you
plugged a whole 'nother puter into your main puter,
and got to run separate apps off of that? Hmmmmm
I'm remembering a couple of those in Byte, which I stopped reading
sometime in the eighties. A 32032? (I never could keep the numbers of
that family straight). A Z8000 for sure. Maybe a 68K of some sort. It's
all very fuzzy...
8:01 a.m.
On Sep 7, 2007, at 4:02 AM, Bernd Kopriva wrote:
Looking for the card?? Why not just build one? It was a
construction article, after all.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
Farewell Ophelia, 9/22/1991 - 7/25/2007
Steve
Ciarcia did a Z8000 card as a project in BYTE, called Trump
Card.
Ahhh,
i'm looking for this one for quite some years now ...
... even Steve dropped his own inventory some years too early :(
9:01 a.m.
On Fri, 7 Sep 2007 11:01:19 -0400, Dave McGuire wrote:
On Sep 7, 2007, at 4:02 AM, Bernd Kopriva wrote:
>> Steve Ciarcia did a Z8000 card as a project in BYTE, called Trump
>> Card.
>
> Ahhh,
> i'm looking for this one for quite some years now ...
> ... even Steve dropped his own inventory some years too early :(
Looking for the card?? Why not just build one? It
was a
construction article, after all.
... my fingers are all thumbs when it comes to hardware development. I'm more
interested in "low level" programming
Ciao Bernd
9 Sep
9 Sep
11:46 a.m.
On Sep 7, 2007, at 12:01 PM, Bernd Kopriva wrote:
This would hardly be "development"; nearly everything in the Trump
Card design is readily available and easy to find, with the possible
exception of the Z8581 clock generator. All you need is a bunch of
parts, a blank ISA prototyping board, a wire-wrap gun, and some time!
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
Farewell Ophelia, 9/22/1991 - 7/25/2007
>>
Steve Ciarcia did a Z8000 card as a project in BYTE, called Trump
>> Card.
>
> Ahhh,
> i'm looking for this one for quite some years now ...
> ... even Steve dropped his own inventory some years too early :(
Looking for the card?? Why not just build one?
It was a
construction article, after all.
... my fingers are all thumbs when it comes to hardware
development. I'm more
interested in "low level" programming
11 Sep
11 Sep
10:19 a.m.
On Sun, 9 Sep 2007 14:46:59 -0400, Dave McGuire wrote:
>
>> Looking for the card?? Why not just build one? It was a
>> construction article, after all.
>
> ... my fingers are all thumbs when it comes to hardware
> development. I'm more
> interested in "low level" programming
This would hardly be "development"; nearly
everything in the Trump
Card design is readily available and easy to find, with the possible
exception of the Z8581 clock generator. All you need is a bunch of
parts, a blank ISA prototyping board, a wire-wrap gun, and some time!
-Dave
Just building the card doesn't seem to be impossible even for me ...
... but i don't believe, that it would be working as i can rate my skills
very well :); and for debugging, i don't have any tools available.
Maybe i'm only too lazy ...
... at least, it's quite astonishing, that nothing seems to be remaining
but the Byte article describing the card. Steve Ciarcia gave some hints
(Sweet Microsystems, Nielsen Ratings) but they didn't help; and Google
(and others) gave no reference to current owners.
Other similar cards (Definicon, Opus, ...) show up on eBay from time to
time, but no Trump Card ...
Ciao Bernd
11:58 a.m.
On Sep 7, 2007, at 2:36 PM, woodelf wrote:
Send away for them? I've not seen many for which that was a
requirement. Indeed, the Trump Card schematics are present in the
article (the prototype was wire-wrapped)...The code has got to be
floating around somewhere.
The point is...if one were suitably motivated to construct a Trump
Card, it certainly wouldn't be impractical to attempt.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
Farewell Ophelia, 9/22/1991 - 7/25/2007
Looking for
the card?? Why not just build one? It was a
construction article, after all.
Since when have you seen a computer contruction
article that
you DID not have send alway for PCB layouts or firmware? 
12:36 p.m.
On 9/7/07, woodelf <bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca> wrote:
Dave McGuire wrote:
The mid-1970s? I have a Popular Electronics with a 2/3ds-size
photo-ready image of the Elf II PCB. I regularly contemplate
attempting to make that one, but feel I need more PCB etching
experience before trying a board that large.
Of course, these days, it's easy just to recapture the schematic and
make a new layout, as people have done with that exact design already.
I just look at the hand-taped swirls of traces and feel that it'd be
nice design to tackle. Lotsa tiny holes to drill (and stuff with
bridging wires) though.
But your point is taken - after that era, most designs were writeups
with an address to send to for professional-quality PCBs.
-ethan
Looking for the card?? Why not just build one?
It was a construction
article, after all.
Since when have you seen a computer contruction article that
you DID not have send alway for PCB layouts or firmware?
4:03 p.m.
Dave McGuire wrote:
I know that's a rhetorical question, but I have to answer it :-)
PE (Practical Electorncc) 'CHAMP' system, in 1977 or so. It was built on
stribboard (and IC postion layouts were given, but you had to work out
where to run the wires from the shcematic). As was the assembly listing
of the monitor ROM.
-tony
Looking for the card?? Why not just build one?
It was a construction
article, after all.
Since when have you seen a computer contruction article that
you DID not have send alway for PCB layouts or firmware?
11:30 a.m.
Bernd Kopriva wrote:
Ahhh,
i'm looking for this one for quite some years now ...
... even Steve dropped his own inventory some years too early :(
That was the only Z8000 project I knew of. I wonder if it was
do to the fact the Z8000 could of had lots of hardware bugs nobody
could use it.
Ciao Bernd
11:36 a.m.
On Sep 7, 2007, at 2:30 PM, woodelf wrote:
That's funny. I used a Z8000-based system for quite a while. It
certainly wasn't the case that *nobody* could use it.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
Farewell Ophelia, 9/22/1991 - 7/25/2007
i'm
looking for this one for quite some years now ...
... even Steve dropped his own inventory some years too early :(
That was the only Z8000 project I knew of. I wonder if it was
do to the fact the Z8000 could of had lots of hardware bugs nobody
could use it. 
4:43 p.m.
On Friday 07 September 2007 14:30, woodelf wrote:
Bernd Kopriva wrote:
That seems unlikely, considering that Tellabs used the Z8002 in a lot of
telco gear (of which I have some boards from).
Pat
--
Purdue University ITAP/RCAC --- http://www.rcac.purdue.edu/
The Computer Refuge --- http://computer-refuge.org
Ahhh,
i'm looking for this one for quite some years now ...
... even Steve dropped his own inventory some years too early :(
That was the only Z8000 project I knew of. I wonder if it was
do to the fact the Z8000 could of had lots of hardware bugs nobody
could use it. 
8 Sep
8 Sep
7:19 a.m.
Date: Fri, 7 Sep 2007 12:30:19 -0600> From:
bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca> To: > Subject: Re: Ancient 8086/80286 unixes?> >
Bernd Kopriva wrote:> > > Ahhh,> > i'm looking for this one for quite
some years now ...> > ... even Steve dropped his own inventory some years too early
:(> > That was the only Z8000 project I knew of. I wonder if it was> do to the
fact the Z8000 could of had lots of hardware bugs nobody> could use it.> > Ciao
Bernd
Hi
I have an Olivetti M20 and it uses the Z8000. It doesn't seem to
have any bugs. It works just fine. It just isn't a 8086. In some ways
the Z8000 was much better than the 8086 but it just never caught on.
Olivetti sold thousands of M20's and a few larger machines as well
using the Z8000.
A lot of embedded machines use Z8000's as well. To my knowledge,
there were no specific bug problems related to the Z8000.
The M20 was designed in Cupertino,Ca.
M20's are rare here in the US but still relatively common in Italy
and Germany. A check of the Italian ebay shows about 3 or 4 a year.
Dwight
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6 Sep
6 Sep
12:19 p.m.
--- "Roy J. Tellason" <rtellason at verizon.net> wrote:
I'm remembering a couple of those in Byte, which
I
stopped reading sometime
in the eighties. A 32032? (I never could keep the
numbers of that family
straight). A Z8000 for sure. Maybe a 68K of some
sort. It's all very
fuzzy...
Speaking of Byte, there was a Circuit Cellar project
board based around a MC68020. I think it may have been
a graphics coprocessor, really don't remember.
____________________________________________________________________________________
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7 Sep
7 Sep
12:58 a.m.
Hi,
i've collected some of those processor boards (all of them are ISA cards), among them
- 2 different Opus SparcCards
- Opus 32332
- Definicon DSI-32 (32032), DSI-780 (68020)
- 2 different Microway NumberSmasher (Intel i860, one EISA)
- Yarc ProTran (Transputer)
- Zaiaz 933 (Clipper) : unfortunately no docs/software :(
- QXL (68040)
- Janus (68000, Atari)
- various Z-80 boards
Some of them include a complete Operating System (mostly UNIX), others have only
some basic runtime environment, so you're mostly on your own (which makes more fun
:))
There are at least two cards, that i really want to add to this collection :
Steve Ciarcia's Trump Card (Z-8001)
Siamese 68040 (Mac on a PCI card), developed by a UK company
but i'm constantly looking for other cards as well
Ciao Bernd
On Thu, 06 Sep 2007 01:31:10 -0400, Roy J. Tellason wrote:
On Wednesday 05 September 2007 14:10, Chris M wrote:
> Here's a neato question: You mentioned coprocessor
> boards, and in fact some kinda sorta functioned that
> way (in some sense - stuff got offloaded to the mpu on
> the board I guess). But what were some early ancillary
> processor boards for the pc/at/?. That is, where you
> plugged a whole 'nother puter into your main puter,
> and got to run separate apps off of that? Hmmmmm
I'm remembering a couple of those in Byte, which I
stopped reading sometime
in the eighties. A 32032? (I never could keep the numbers of that family
straight). A Z8000 for sure. Maybe a 68K of some sort. It's all very
fuzzy...
--
Member of the toughest, meanest, deadliest, most unrelenting -- and
ablest -- form of life in this section of space, a critter that can
be killed but can't be tamed. --Robert A. Heinlein, "The Puppet Masters"
-
Information is more dangerous than cannon to a society ruled by lies. --James
M Dakin
10:07 a.m.
On 7 Sep 2007 at 9:58, Bernd Kopriva wrote:
Steve Ciarcia's Trump Card (Z-8001)
From the article at
http://www.dtweed.com/circuitcellar/trumpcrd.pdf
It seems that the big advantage cited by Ciarcia was the ability to
run a compile-in-place languge called TBASIC to gain performance.
Given the prices on his cards, it hardly seems like a bargain.
If one wanted to goof around with the Z8000 family as a coprocessor
card, I'd be sore tempted to wire up something with a Z8002 and 64K
of SRAM. You get the instructions without the expense and you don't
have to deal with the (awful) Z8000 segmented mode. And relatively
easy to do a lashup. Instead of Ciarcia's bucket, you could probably
do with a single Z8036. Fit the whole thing on a "short" card.
IMOHO, only Motorola and NS of all of the "16 bit" chip producers
ever understood the importance of a continuous non-segmented memory
space. Given the time of introduction, I consider the 68K to be a
marvel of MPU design. Too bad IBM didn't adopt it for the PC.
Cheers,
Chuck
11:39 a.m.
Chuck Guzis wrote:
IMOHO, only Motorola and NS of all of the "16
bit" chip producers
ever understood the importance of a continuous non-segmented memory
space. Given the time of introduction, I consider the 68K to be a
marvel of MPU design. Too bad IBM didn't adopt it for the PC.
Too bad IBM sold
the WRONG PC. Some sort of LAB computer IBM made
had a 68000 I think.
Cheers,
Chuck
1:21 p.m.
On 7 Sep 2007 at 12:39, woodelf wrote:
Too bad IBM sold the WRONG PC. Some sort of LAB
computer IBM made
had a 68000 I think.
Ah, the IBM CS9000 "instrument computer". It was announced shortly
before the 5150 and had a few people speculating that the 5150 would
be 68K based also. Sadly, no:
http://www.columbia.edu/acis/history/cs9000.html
But the aesthetics were terrible...
Cheers,
Chuck
9 Sep
9 Sep
12:47 p.m.
On Sep 7, 2007, at 4:21 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote:
Wow...I think it's gorgeous, myself!
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
Farewell Ophelia, 9/22/1991 - 7/25/2007
Too bad IBM
sold the WRONG PC. Some sort of LAB computer IBM made
had a 68000 I think.
Ah, the IBM CS9000 "instrument computer". It was announced shortly
before the 5150 and had a few people speculating that the 5150 would
be 68K based also. Sadly, no:
http://www.columbia.edu/acis/history/cs9000.html
But the aesthetics were terrible...
8 Sep
8 Sep
7:36 a.m.
From: cclist at sydex.com> To: cctalk at
classiccmp.org> Date: Fri, 7 Sep 2007 10:07:40 -0700> Subject: Re: Ancient
8086/80286 unixes?> > On 7 Sep 2007 at 9:58, Bernd Kopriva wrote:> > >
Steve Ciarcia's Trump Card (Z-8001)> > >From the article at
http://www.dtweed.com/circuitcellar/trumpcrd.pdf> > It seems that the big advantage
cited by Ciarcia was the ability to > run a compile-in-place languge called TBASIC to
gain performance. > Given the prices on his cards, it hardly seems like a bargain.>
> If one wanted to goof around with the Z8000 family as a coprocessor > card,
I'd be sore tempted to wire up something with a Z8002 and 64K > of SRAM. You get
the instructions without the expense and you don't > have to deal with the (awful)
Z8000 segmented mode. And relatively > easy to do a lashup. Instead of Ciarcia's
bucket, you could probably > do with a single Z8036. Fit the whole thing on a
"short" card.
Hi
You can still use a Z8001 because it boots to non-segmented mode
and looks like a Z8002. The trick is to find the memory management
chip and add it to the Z8001. One can still use the Z8001 without
this and treat it as a Z8002. You can just ignore the segments.
Still, if you want to get the CP/M8000 running, you'll need to
embrace segmented code.
Once you are running segmented code, the only reason you need
to worry about it is that you can't run continuous code or data for
more than 64K.
The main disadvantage of running segemented is that many instructions
take more code space. One can still switch back and forth between
segmented code and non-segmented. This saves a lot of code space.
If one does their memory decoding correctly, one can have 64K code
and 64K data space in either segmented or non-segmented modes.
( the M20 does this for part of the memory map ).
> IMOHO, only Motorola and NS of all of the
"16 bit" chip producers > ever understood the importance of a continuous
non-segmented memory > space. Given the time of introduction, I consider the 68K to be
a > marvel of MPU design. Too bad IBM didn't adopt it for the PC.
That is true, it mades the 68K look real good for it's time. Still,
it had a memory limit, just bigger than 64K.
Dwight
> Cheers,> Chuck> > >
_________________________________________________________________
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10:09 a.m.
On 8 Sep 2007 at 7:36, dwight elvey wrote:
You can still use a Z8001 because it boots to
non-segmented mode
and looks like a Z8002. The trick is to find the memory management
chip and add it to the Z8001. One can still use the Z8001 without
this and treat it as a Z8002. You can just ignore the segments.
Still, if you want to get the CP/M8000 running, you'll need to
embrace segmented code.
I understand--and if Ciarcia had offered a full-blown OS for his
card, it might be worth exploring Z8001 segmented mode. The M20 and
even the Onyx Z8000 Unix box that I used once upon a time would be
worthwhile examples. But just to run a compile-in-place BASIC?
The Z8000 wasn't a bad chip; it just didn't have anything going for
it that was particularly exciting. But then, neither did the 8086--
but for the massive presence and production capabilities of Intel.
To be fair, there were Z80-to-Z8000 translation tools, so one could
ostensibly port an existing application. I've got the manual for one
called TRANZ from AMC.
I recall talking with the design guys from NS about the (then) 16032
and was blown away by the ambitious design. Had they been able to
offer silicon in 1981, we would have signed with them. But it was
always "Real Soon Now". From what I heard from friends who had
attempted to use the first silicon, it was an experience that I was
better for having missed. And then there was National's typical
noncommitment to supporting any given design (IMP-16, SC/MP, PACE,
8080, 8086...) given the way the wind was blowing at any time.
Apparently the NS32xxx series had better success overseas than it did
domestically, where I'm sure there were plenty of frustrated people
who gave up waiting on the "Real Soon Now".
Cheers,
Chuck
9:45 p.m.
From: cclist at sydex.com> > On 8 Sep 2007 at
7:36, dwight elvey wrote:> > > You can still use a Z8001 because it boots to
non-segmented mode> > and looks like a Z8002. The trick is to find the memory
management> > chip and add it to the Z8001. One can still use the Z8001 without>
> this and treat it as a Z8002. You can just ignore the segments.> > Still, if
you want to get the CP/M8000 running, you'll need to> > embrace segmented
code.> > I understand--and if Ciarcia had offered a full-blown OS for his > card,
it might be worth exploring Z8001 segmented mode. The M20 and > even the Onyx Z8000
Unix box that I used once upon a time would be > worthwhile examples. But just to run a
compile-in-place BASIC? > > The Z8000 wasn't a bad chip; it just didn't have
anything going for > it that was particularly exciting. But then, neither did the
8086--> but for the massive presence and production capabilities of Intel. > To be
fair, there were Z80-to-Z8000 translation tools, so one could > ostensibly port an
existing application. I've got the manual for one > called TRANZ from AMC.
Hi Chuck
I had a chance to ask Faggin why he did finish the math coprocessor
for the Z8000's. He stated that the handwriting was quite clear.
The 8086 would soon dominate. I wasn't worth the effort to get the
math coprocessor working.
Other than the addressing, the Z8000 had a nice register arangement.
It was much closer to a RISC than the 8086 ever was.
> I recall talking with the design guys from NS
about the (then) 16032 > and was blown away by the ambitious design. Had they been able
to > offer silicon in 1981, we would have signed with them. But it was > always
"Real Soon Now". From what I heard from friends who had > attempted to use
the first silicon, it was an experience that I was > better for having missed. And then
there was National's typical > noncommitment to supporting any given design
(IMP-16, SC/MP, PACE, > 8080, 8086...) given the way the wind was blowing at any time.
> Apparently the NS32xxx series had better success overseas than it did >
domestically, where I'm sure there were plenty of frustrated people > who gave up
waiting on the "Real Soon Now".
I still have a couple of NA2000 series boards. This was another National
start and drop.
These has the 800 processor as dies on a PC board with other components.
One could stack the units as well. Some came with an early version of
Forth in ROM as well.
I had a power unit as well but I'll have to spend some serious time
working on it because of the NiCad leaking.
Dwight
> Cheers,> Chuck>
_________________________________________________________________
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9 Sep
9 Sep
8:04 a.m.
Er. I found this difficult to follow...
On 09/09/2007, dwight elvey <dkelvey at hotmail.com> wrote:
I had a chance to ask Faggin why he did finish the
math coprocessor
You mean, "didn't"?
for the Z8000's. He stated that the handwriting
was quite clear.
(Z8000s. No apostrophes on plurals. Not even on numbers. None, ever.)
The 8086 would soon dominate. I wasn't worth the
effort to get the
"It wasn't"?
math coprocessor working.
Other than the addressing, the Z8000 had a nice register arangement.
("arrangement")
It was much closer to a RISC than the 8086 ever was.
I still have a couple of NA2000 series boards. This
was another National
start and drop.
These has the 800 processor as dies on a PC board with other components.
("These have".)
I don't meant to nitpick - the corrections in parentheses did not
impede my comprehension. The ones outside them, though, *did*. I
suggest taking just a few more seconds over a post?
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8:20 p.m.
On Sep 7, 2007, at 1:07 PM, Chuck Guzis wrote:
If one wanted to goof around with the Z8000 family as
a coprocessor
card, I'd be sore tempted to wire up something with a Z8002 and 64K
of SRAM. You get the instructions without the expense and you don't
have to deal with the (awful) Z8000 segmented mode. And relatively
easy to do a lashup. Instead of Ciarcia's bucket, you could probably
do with a single Z8036. Fit the whole thing on a "short" card.
I would love to do that. Actually, even more than that, I'd
really like to put together a Z8000-based SBC with some dialect of
Forth in ROM. I have a few Z16C02 and Z8536 chips here that might be
well-suited to that purpose.
IMOHO, only Motorola and NS of all of the "16
bit" chip producers
ever understood the importance of a continuous non-segmented memory
space. Given the time of introduction, I consider the 68K to be a
marvel of MPU design. Too bad IBM didn't adopt it for the PC.
...a bad decision for which the world is still paying the price.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
Port Charlotte, FL
Farewell Ophelia, 9/22/1991 - 7/25/2007
5 Sep
5 Sep
3:30 p.m.
I wonder if there were any 80286 coprocessor plug-in
boards for the
XT before the AT?
I don't know when thay came out (relative to the AT), but 80286 add-on
boards for the XT exist(ed). There's one in my junk box. It's a
half-length ISA card containing an 80286, 80287 and glue logic, with a
ribbon cable ending in a 40 pin DIL plug that presumanly goes in the 8088
socket on the PC/XT motherboard.
I also have an 8086 board for the XT. Of course the benefit of that
processor over the 8088 was the 16 bit databus, which sould be lost if
the thing had to do 8 bit accesses to memory. So there's full 640K of
RAM on this board too. Of course it does use 8 bit transfers to access
ROMs and peripherals. This is a full-length card, again with a cable and
DIL plug to go in the 8088 socket.
-tony
4:18 p.m.
--- Tony Duell <ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk> wrote:
I also have an 8086 board for the XT. Of course the
benefit of that
processor over the 8088 was the 16 bit databus,
which sould be lost if
the thing had to do 8 bit accesses to memory. So
there's full 640K of
RAM on this board too. Of course it does use 8 bit
transfers to access
ROMs and peripherals. This is a full-length card,
again with a cable and
DIL plug to go in the 8088 socket.
Is it's intended to supplant or supplement the 8088?
Are you sure it just isn't a mpu board for some unit
w/a passive backplane? I don't mean to insult your
intelligence, just that it's a possibility.
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4:22 p.m.
On Wed, 5 Sep 2007, Chris M wrote:
Is it's intended to supplant or supplement the
8088?
Are you sure it just isn't a mpu board for some unit
w/a passive backplane? I don't mean to insult your
intelligence, just that it's a possibility.
I've had ones that were explicitly to replace (supplant?) the 8088
4:33 p.m.
--- Fred Cisin <cisin at xenosoft.com> wrote:
On Wed, 5 Sep 2007, Chris M wrote:
We could be getting our lines crossed here. Typically
these things are called "coprocessors". I defy that
designation. Granted there could be some offloading of
instructions (sort of kind of like what happens w/an
onboard 8087), but regardless, the objective is to
replace the 8088. I had been wondering if there were
boards for a pc that supplemented the operation of the
onboard mpu by providing another processor
altoghether, and in no way replacing the old 8088,
thereby in effect giving you 2 pc's in one. Of course
there were z80 boards, 68k? boards that accomplished
this.
Referring to an IBM PGA card is cheating :). It's
function was not to provide a second environment.
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Is it's intended to supplant or supplement
the
8088?
Are you sure it just isn't a mpu board for
some
unit
w/a passive backplane? I don't mean to insult
your
intelligence, just that it's a possibility.
I've had ones that were explicitly to replace
(supplant?) the 8088
5 p.m.
On 5 Sep 2007 at 16:33, Chris M wrote:
The Intel Inboard 286 or 386 PC/XT? IIRC, the 8088 booted, then
turned over the bus to the 286 or 386. I don't know if there were
any applications that switched between the two, but I don't doubt
that one could devise an application such that one or the other would
be running.
I do recall the "This will not run on an Inboard 286!" notices,
however.
Cheers,
Chuck
We could be
getting our lines crossed here. Typically
these things are called
"coprocessors". I defy that
designation. Granted there could be some offloading of
instructions (sort of kind of like what happens w/an
onboard 8087), but regardless, the objective is to
replace the 8088. I had been wondering if there were
boards for a pc that supplemented the operation of the
onboard mpu by providing another processor
altoghether, and in no way replacing the old 8088,
thereby in effect giving you 2 pc's in one. Of course
there were z80 boards, 68k? boards that accomplished
this. 
6 Sep
6 Sep
7:43 a.m.
On 9/5/07, Chris M <chrism3667 at yahoo.com> wrote:
I had been wondering if there were
boards for a pc that supplemented the operation of the
onboard mpu by providing another processor
altoghether, and in no way replacing the old 8088,
thereby in effect giving you 2 pc's in one. Of course
there were z80 boards, 68k? boards that accomplished
this.
There were the HP Viper 82300 and Hyper-Viper 82324 68K based boards
for running Rocky Mountain BASIC on a PC.
ftp://ftp.agilent.com/pub/mpusup/pc/old/vp_over.html
(I hope people have archived the above directory for the day when that
info disappears...)
9:34 a.m.
Seems to me that there was also a Burroughs (branded?) machine with a
proporietary (i.e. Burroughs legacy architecture) board.
How about S/370 emulator cards?
--Chuck
11:34 a.m.
Sridhar Ayengar wrote:
Chuck Guzis wrote:
The rumor I heard it was a 68000 with different microcode.
That was the first and last time I heard of it.
How about S/370 emulator cards?
I believe the S/370 8-bit card was an off-the-shelf processor running
custom microcode. Peace... Sridhar
Ben alias woodelf
12:30 p.m.
--- Chuck Guzis <cclist at sydex.com> wrote:
Seems to me that there was also a Burroughs
(branded?) machine with a
proporietary (i.e. Burroughs legacy architecture)
board.
I'm not sure what you're referring to here. There was
a group of 286 (386?) Burroughs machines that were
bios-less. Saw 1 on eBay a couple of years back. I
should have grabbed them :(
Did Burroughs ever build a real IBM compatible? Most
know about the '186 based ICON. It almost seems like
you're referring to something pcish w/some
mini/mainframe card installed. But what do I know...
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1:23 p.m.
On 6 Sep 2007 at 12:30, Chris M wrote:
Did Burroughs ever build a real IBM compatible? Most
know about the '186 based ICON. It almost seems like
you're referring to something pcish w/some
mini/mainframe card installed. But what do I know...
Definitely a PC base with some technology installed. It was
discussed (last year?) in the archives. I'm thinking about the XE550
(Intel 186+4 Moto 68K) and all of the NGEN IOP modules that could
run CTOS. The Intel CPU ran Win NT, IIRC.
I'm very fuzzy on it all right now.
Cheers,
Chuck
12:27 p.m.
--- Glen Slick <glen.slick at gmail.com> wrote:
There were the HP Viper 82300 and Hyper-Viper 82324
68K based boards
for running Rocky Mountain BASIC on a PC.
ftp://ftp.agilent.com/pub/mpusup/pc/old/vp_over.html
The early Vectras had cards w/68k's. For instrumental
control IIRC.
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1:31 p.m.
On Thu, 6 Sep 2007, Chris M wrote:
--- Glen Slick <glen.slick at gmail.com> wrote:
Does anyone here remember or have a Sparcplug?
--
David Griffith
dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu
A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing in e-mail?
There were the HP Viper 82300 and Hyper-Viper
82324
68K based boards
for running Rocky Mountain BASIC on a PC.
ftp://ftp.agilent.com/pub/mpusup/pc/old/vp_over.html
The early Vectras had cards w/68k's. For instrumental
control IIRC.
1:36 p.m.
--- David Griffith <dgriffi at cs.csubak.edu> wrote:
On Thu, 6 Sep 2007, Chris M wrote:
O sure. I got 6. Can't spare a one though. I hate
rattling down the road on less then all-cylinders LOL
LOL LOL LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL!
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--- Glen Slick <glen.slick at gmail.com>
wrote:
> There were the HP Viper 82300 and Hyper-Viper
82324
> 68K based boards
> for running Rocky Mountain BASIC on a PC.
>
>
ftp://ftp.agilent.com/pub/mpusup/pc/old/vp_over.html
The early Vectras had cards w/68k's. For
instrumental
control IIRC.
Does anyone here remember or have a Sparcplug?
5 Sep
5 Sep
4:32 p.m.
I also have an
8086 board for the XT. Of course the
benefit of that
processor over the 8088 was the 16 bit databus,
which sould be lost if
the thing had to do 8 bit accesses to memory. So
there's full 640K of
RAM on this board too. Of course it does use 8 bit
transfers to access
ROMs and peripherals. This is a full-length card,
again with a cable and
DIL plug to go in the 8088 socket.
Is it's intended to supplant or supplement the 8088?
Are you sure it just isn't a mpu board for some unit
w/a passive backplane? I don't mean to insult your
intelligence, just that it's a possibility.
4:37 p.m.
--- Tony Duell <ard at p850ug1.demon.co.uk> wrote:
I think the name etched into the copper implied it
was an add-on for the
PC/XT, and given the fact that it has this ribbon
cable ending in the 40
pin DIL header plug, I assume it replaces the 8088
(and therefore doesn't
go in a passive backplane).
Uh, yes I actually did read that, but evidently lost
the knowledge rather quickly. Nuff said.
Funny though that someone would go to all the
trouble, and expense, to simply add an 8086 though. I
guess it could have been a fast 8086. But a board like
that probably wasn't cheap.
____________________________________________________________________________________
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4:20 p.m.
> I wonder if there were any 80286 coprocessor
plug-in boards for the
> XT before the AT?
On Wed, 5 Sep 2007, Tony Duell wrote:
half-length ISA card containing an 80286, 80287 and
glue logic, with a
ribbon cable ending in a 40 pin DIL plug that presumanly goes in the 8088
socket on the PC/XT motherboard.
I also have an 8086 board for the XT. Of course the benefit of that
ISA:
80386 "Elevator"?
Z80
11:17 a.m.
From: "woodelf":
Did not Xenix follow the Small 8086 model - 64K data
& 64K code?
XENIX 286 would run small, middle, large, and huge model programs.
Most of the utility programs were built small model, as they didn't
need much memory. I remember that 'vi' was built middle model.
I think back on v7 it was much the same -- most programs didn't
need seperate I and D, but vi did.
I actually ported GNU emacs to XENIX 286 once. That was a waste
of time -- when I got it working, there was only enough RAM left
to enter about 40 characters into the buffer. And I was on a 2Mb
machine, which was considered large at the time!
Vince
11:25 a.m.
--- Vincent Slyngstad <vrs at msn.com> wrote:
From: "woodelf":
Huge for the '286 would indicate running in it's
version of protected mode? I'm still a bit confused
over the difference. I know there was a Windows-286 -
does this mean it utilized the '286 in full force -
16megs of ram, etc.?
____________________________________________________________________________________
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Did not Xenix follow the Small 8086 model - 64K
data & 64K code?
XENIX 286 would run small, middle, large, and huge
model programs.
11:47 a.m.
On 5 Sep 2007 at 11:25, Chris M wrote:
Huge for the '286 would indicate running in
it's
version of protected mode? I'm still a bit confused
over the difference.
"Tiny" = 1 segment/selector for both code and data
"Small" = 1 segment for code; 1 segment for data
"Compact" = 1 segment for code; more than one for data
"Medium" = more than one segment for code; 1 segment for data
"Large" = more than one segment for both code and data, but no data
item larger than 64K
"Huge" = more than one segment for both code and data, with
individual data elements larger than 64K.
There's one model not categorized; one segment for code, and more
than one for data with elements larger than 64K. I found that I used
this model more than "Huge".
Cheers,
Chuck
11:54 a.m.
On Wed, 5 Sep 2007 11:17:45 -0700
"Vincent Slyngstad" <vrs at msn.com> wrote:
I actually ported GNU emacs to XENIX 286 once. That
was a waste
of time -- when I got it working, there was only enough RAM left
to enter about 40 characters into the buffer. And I was on a 2Mb
machine, which was considered large at the time!
EMACS = Eight Megabytes And
Continuously Swapping. ;-)
--
tsch??,
Jochen
Homepage: http://www.unixag-kl.fh-kl.de/~jkunz/
11:11 a.m.
From: "Chuck Guzis":
If my memory serves, the first ports of Unix for the
80286 weren't
for the PC/AT (i.e. earlier) and were for Xenix, not Unix (yes, I
know, a minor quibble). It was an odd arrangement--Microsoft was
working on the utilities, etc. and Intel was working on the kernel
code. The whole affair seemed to take forever.
I don't recall which was "first", but I worked with the team that
did the XENIX kernel work at Intel. (That work was done on Multibus
systems.)
Vince
11:19 a.m.
--- Vincent Slyngstad <vrs at msn.com> wrote:
I don't recall which was "first", but I
worked with
the team that
did the XENIX kernel work at Intel. (That work was
done on Multibus
systems.)
M$ sold XENIX to SCO, right? Did that include every
version of XENIX (68000, Tandy 6000 for instance?).
____________________________________________________________________________________
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11:48 a.m.
Chuck Guzis said:
On 5 Sep 2007 at 10:15, Brian Wheeler wrote:
Long time ago I had 5.25" floppies for a Microport/286 Unix in hands,
later a 386 version of that. I think this was a real SYSV UNIX, not a
Xenix UNIX-lookalike. Must have been in the mid 80s, but eventually these
floppies got lost when the 386 and the various 386bsd and Linux
experiments came up. Unfortunately, this Unix died together with Microport
long ago, and not only I have lost the media set.
Regards
--
Holger
I don't suppose anybody knows where one would
dig up old unixes for 8086
or 80286 based PCs? Source would be a big bonus. I've been playing
with the bcc compiler and the V7 source and just curious what "real"
ports looked like.
If my memory serves, the first ports of Unix for the 80286 weren't
for the PC/AT (i.e. earlier) and were for Xenix, not Unix (yes, I
know, a minor quibble). It was an odd arrangement--Microsoft was
working on the utilities, etc. and Intel was working on the kernel
code. The whole affair seemed to take forever.
12:12 p.m.
Hi
Seems that some copies have survived:
ac:~/Desktop/OSes/microport paco$ strings build-disk.img | more
SYSV386
ERROR reading bootstrap
Base memory < 512k, can't boot UNIX
Diskette unit 0 must be quad density
Loading Unix
Paco
On 9/5/07, Holger Veit <holger.veit at iais.fraunhofer.de> wrote:
Chuck Guzis said:
Long time ago I had 5.25" floppies for a Microport/286 Unix in hands,
later a 386 version of that. I think this was a real SYSV UNIX, not a
Xenix UNIX-lookalike. Must have been in the mid 80s, but eventually these
floppies got lost when the 386 and the various 386bsd and Linux
experiments came up. Unfortunately, this Unix died together with Microport
long ago, and not only I have lost the media set.
Regards
--
Holger
On 5 Sep 2007 at 10:15, Brian Wheeler wrote:
> I don't suppose anybody knows where one would dig up old unixes for
8086
or 80286
based PCs? Source would be a big bonus. I've been playing
with the bcc compiler and the V7 source and just curious what "real"
ports looked like.
If my memory serves, the first ports of Unix for the 80286 weren't
for the PC/AT (i.e. earlier) and were for Xenix, not Unix (yes, I
know, a minor quibble). It was an odd arrangement--Microsoft was
working on the utilities, etc. and Intel was working on the kernel
code. The whole affair seemed to take forever.
1:55 p.m.
From: "Holger Veit":
Long time ago I had 5.25" floppies for a
Microport/286 Unix in hands,
later a 386 version of that. I think this was a real SYSV UNIX, not a
Xenix UNIX-lookalike. Must have been in the mid 80s, but eventually these
floppies got lost when the 386 and the various 386bsd and Linux
experiments came up. Unfortunately, this Unix died together with Microport
long ago, and not only I have lost the media set.
I still have the pilot evaluation units of Intel's XENIX 3.0 distribution
for the System 310 (Multibus 286).
Vince
1:34 p.m.
On Wed, 5 Sep 2007, Chuck Guzis wrote:
If my memory serves, the first ports of Unix for the
80286 weren't
for the PC/AT (i.e. earlier) and were for Xenix, not Unix (yes, I
know, a minor quibble). It was an odd arrangement--Microsoft was
working on the utilities, etc. and Intel was working on the kernel
code. The whole affair seemed to take forever.
IIRC, Xenix WAS Unix. There were two parts of a Unix license, code and
name. Xenix was fully licensed on code, but did not license the "Unix"
name trademark.
Leastwise, that's how it was written up in infoworld, etc. at the time.
2:05 p.m.
On 5 Sep 2007 at 13:34, Fred Cisin wrote:
IIRC, Xenix WAS Unix. There were two parts of a Unix
license, code and
name. Xenix was fully licensed on code, but did not license the "Unix"
name trademark.
Leastwise, that's how it was written up in infoworld, etc. at the time.
There were, I recall, some significant differences. Like BSD, I
think it'd be safest to term it "Unix derivative". AT&T got really
strange in the early 80's about their licensing terms. At some
point, I think, they were pushing a per-seat fee. No more of "Pay us
$50K and we'll send you a tape that you can play with however you'd
like".
I have MS-DOS 2.0 release notes from Microsoft that says that they
intended to turn MS-DOS into a single-user Xenix-work-alike.
Cheers,
Chuck
1:05 p.m.
Xenix was kinda bloated.
Although it would run happily on an XT, it wanted 16M of hard disk!
9:38 p.m.
New subject: 286 accelerator cards - Was : Ancient 8086/80286 unixes?
There was also one for the Dec-Rainbow, it went into the 8086 socket, the
Turbow 286.
6 Sep
6 Sep
12:18 p.m.
New subject: 286 accelerator cards - Was : Ancient 8086/80286 unixes?
--- Geoff Reed <geoffr at zipcon.net> wrote:
There was also one for the Dec-Rainbow, it went into
the 8086 socket, the
Turbow 286.
Did this by any chance offer some degree of IBM
compatibility, or was it just a speed-up? There were
at least a couple of '286 upgrades for the Texas
Instruments Professional Computer. Turns out there
were also '286 versions of the TI PC and TI PPC.
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