Another interesting computer on ebay

[jim s]

On 10/25/2010 8:13 PM, Dave McGuire wrote:
> On 10/25/10 11:08 PM, Brian Lanning wrote:
>> You guys might like this one.  I didn't realize AMD has been around
>> that long.
>>
>> http://cgi.ebay.com/AMD-AM9080-INTEL-8080-CLONE-VINTAGE-COMPUTER-1978-RARE-/220687586521?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item33620154d9 
>>
>
>   AMD was founded in the '60s!
>
>         -Dave
>
> -- 
> Dave McGuire
> Port Charlotte, FL
>
>
I sent Skeeter (the seller) my $0.02 worth, which is that this is a 
control store (as the boards say) for 2901 development.  I think the 
8080 and other logic is support system logic to support loading of this 
and probably controlling the debug assets for the system under test.

We used systems from HiLevel in Irvine which were much larger and 
advanced than this system is.  Note the 79 and 80 date codes on the 
8080's in the system which fits for early 2901 development (or it was 
for me).  I worked with Ultimate which had 16 and 32 bit systems based 
on the 2901.

Honeywell did the hardware based on their disk controller design, which 
had all the DMA access, and the 2901 boards were coprocessors plugged 
into Level 6 systems.

Don Woods of adventure fame was one of the engineers, from what I heard 
on that system.

The big problem in that time was development tools, which was usually 
some sort of assembler, and then writable control store.  I'm sure there 
were lots of ways to control the micromachines being debugged, both thru 
the 2901, and by added logic to do such debugging.

Jim