The SC/MP is finally alive! - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

5 Apr 2005

...
 Subject: Re: The SC/MP is finally alive!
   From: Wai-Sun Chia <waisun.chia at gmail.com> 
...
 After having looked it up, the literature says that one
of the unique
feature of the SC/MP was/is the ability to share the system bus with
other peers, therefore was designed for multiprocessing embedded
system. 
Yes.  I used one of the later 8073 (SC/MP-II in Nmos) running Nibble
Basic and used a second SC/MP-I (oldest pmos part) in an arrangement 
so the basic one did IO via the second using a shared bit of ram.
It was impressive then (1980).

...
 The site further acknowledged that this feature alone
makes th SC/MP
II one of the most advanced design of its time. 
it was a little used but unique feature.  However, it was also over 
rated as it took trivial TTL logic to get the same functionality 
when using 8085 or Z80s in multiples.

...
 So anybody is planning to build a cluster of these
babies? :-) 
Not likely. As micros go it was slow and if that much cpu was 
needed to share/multiprocessor an application people move up to 
Z80 or 8088.

...
 p.s. do you have pics of your SC/MP system? I would
love to have a
look at them... 
Yes, slides really.  I only just got a digital camera so I have to dig 
stuff out and take pics, someday.

Allison
[keeper of old compuers, SBCs, S100, DEC PDP-8, PDP-11 and VAX]