OS-9/68k Control Coprocessor module

[emanuel stiebler]

On 2020-07-29 19:08, Charles Dickman via cctalk wrote:
> I came across an Allen-Bradley 1771-DMC4 Control Coprocessor. If you are
> familiar with AB PLC's, it is a 1771-IO chassis module that could be a
> "sidecar" for a PLC5 PLC or a standalone module.

Can't help you here, we made our own HW.

> It runs some version of OS-9/68k on a 68340 processor. It has 4MB static
> ram and a 10MB ethernet AUI connector. I hooked up a terminal and can get
> to an OS-9 prompt. It has by default a 64k RAM disk that is empty. The best
> I can gather is that there was an external IDE (AB 1771-PCB PCbridge) that
> was used to create programs that were loaded onto the RAM disk. Once
> configured it would run standalone.

I was a big fan of OS-9 for years, and did many projects with it ...
LOVED it ...

Most (all?) OS-9 manuals you can find online.

> Microware is still around in some form so OS-9 is not completely dead and I
> did find some references to a Microware product called PBbridge. It would
> be interesting to experiment with.

It is actually not much more than a Procomm, or whatever Terminal
software was used back then. It gave you access to your target, some
commandlines, and download/upload features.

> I am curious if anyone has any experience with this hardware, with the IDE
> or OS-9/68k in general. I've never seen much discussion of OS-9/68k on
> classicmp.

OS-9 had many fans, when it came up on 6809. The 68k version, was more
used around professionals ...

Will definitely set it up again in my office, as soon as I get a decent
DOSBOX again ...