Any PACE users out there?

[Eric Smith]

Chuck Guzis wrote:

> At a Wescon (can't recall which one) in the 70's, NSC was giving away 
> samples of the PACE, along with documentation.  Well, I can't resist 
> anything *free*  at trade shows, even if it's a dead i386 die encased 
> in resin and promoted as a keychain fob, so I grabbed a sample package.

Alexandre Souza wrote:
>    I'd **love** to have one of these, principally FREE :o)

One problem with taking advantage of a PACE chip (free or otherwise) is 
that the I/O pads aren't compatible with TTL, or with much of anything 
else either.  The specs are very strange.  National made some buffer and 
transceiver chips designed to work with it, but of course they are even 
more like unobtanium these days than the PACE itself.  I suspect that 
the easiest thing to interface to it nowdays would be CD4000B series 
CMOS logic, which is extremely slow, but then so is the PACE.

The later INS8900, which was basically an NMOS version of the PACE, had 
more conventional I/O pads so it was easier to interface.

Eric