RTX-2000 processor PC/AT add-in card (any takers?)

[dwight]

I'd also like to have the board. I have a board with a NC4000 but never managed to get a RTX-2000.

One might say the NC4000 was the prototype for the RTX-2000.

The RTX-2000 could run applications several times faster than the same applications on a X86 machine of the time. They were often used as accelerators for different purposes. The ran two 16 bit busses at the same time and could execute as much as 4 operations in a single cycle.

Most instructions did a minimum of 2 operations in a single cycle.

Harris made the RTX-2000 in a rad hardened form so they were commonly used for satellites.

Having only a few gates for a processor meant they were more reliable for such applications

as well.

As an example. I wrote code for my NC4000, running at 2MHz that could sort 1,000 integers in 19.1 ms, worst case.

I'm in silicon valley.

Dwight


________________________________
From: cctalk <cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org> on behalf of Dave via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
Sent: Monday, April 10, 2017 11:41:34 AM
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: RTX-2000 processor PC/AT add-in card (any takers?)

I have a Harris RTX-2000 based system control board for a long defunct system.  The board worked when removed more than 20 years ago in the mid 90's.  The RTX-2000 is a stack-based processor designed for running FORTH.  I think it was designed by Phil Koopman based on his graduate work.  The board is a 16-bit ISA board.  It was part of an MRI system that ran a version of MPE forth with a C-to-FORTH compiler (actually a C-like variant) that spits out a 16-bit FORTH variant with some embedded RTX-2000 code.

I also have another card with 3 channels of streaming 16-bit digital I/O, with special hardware to implement on-the-fly rotation matrices to the streaming output.
I have all the software and drivers as well. and I have written a c-based simulator that can run the FORTH/assembly emitted by the C-to-FORTH compiler (as well as the MRI libraries and hardware.)
If anyone wants to tinker with this hardware, or just pull the RTX-2000 chip, I would rather find a good home than toss the boards.
Dave