Neat find (in my own junk bin!) - NS 8073

[Ethan Dicks]

On Mon, Mar 03, 2008 at 08:26:15PM +1100, Doug Jackson wrote:
> Hi
> 
> I saw a message on the classic computer list in 2003 from Ethan saying 
> that he had a RB5X robot controller with a 8073 SC/MP controller on it.  

Yep.  I even have it with me.  I need to finish debugging a problem
with the SC-02 speech board and why it acts differently depending
on what vendor and model of 8255 is used to access it.

> The thread degenerated into a general car discussion from what I have 
> been able to determine.

Yes... well that does tend to happen, unfortunately.
 
> Today, I received my INS8060 and INS8073 CPU chips from Unicorn

Nice.

> I am very interested in the INS8073 (with Tiny Basic onboard), and have 
> so far come across a PDF of the 807x (8070/8072), as another spare time 
> consuming system - My questions are;
> 
> 1)  Has anybody got a reference implementation for the 8073

http://www.penguincentral.com/retrocomputing/INS8073/APNOTE1.PDF

> - I suspect 
> that it involves a 4Mhz xtal, and a RS232 line driver/receiver connected 
> to SA (as RXD) and F1 (as TXD) - that can be breadboarded easily, but 
> the real secret is what address will it be expecting the external 6164 
> ram to provide the 8k of massive storage...

The RAM needs to start at $1000 (Tiny BASIC lives at $0000-$0FFF).

The other trick is that you need to provide a few jumper bits at $FFD0 so
that the onboard ROM knows what baudrate to talk to you at.  The reference
design, I think, makes the right bit pattern out of resistors and floats
the rest of the data bus so that the bit pattern shows up in all
non-addressed spaces.  I have another INS8073 board, the MC-1N, that uses
a 32x8 PROM for address selection of RAM, ROM, and a couple of I/O chips,
plus the baudrate detector.  It's far more formal than the reference
design, and might be a way to go if you want any I/O other than the two
or three bits right off the processor.
 
You can also put an EPROM at $8000, but that's not an essential part
of the reference design.

> 2)  Did anybody end up reverse engineering the RB5X board - in the words 
> of a somebody wiser than me  -- "That'l do in  a pinch"

Who needs to reverse-engineer it?  The current owner of the pile of
RB5X parts sent me the schematics. ;-)  I can find out if I can send a
copy to someone without a robot, or you could join the RB5X Yahoo
Group and see if what you want is in this...

<http://f1.grp.yahoofs.com/v1/EL7LR571EbdQtY-HSujUFO5g5sL8lQVjI0nR1dLy-6_El33OcDUpz6dh2aVP1rHT8JpfNYKo_6BUHC3WVWrbmgrRKSuhvw/RB5X%20Refreence%20Manual.PDF>

> 3)  Does anybody have the basic reference guide that indicates the 
> allowed word lists for this part?

For just a programmer's card - <http://www.penguincentral.com/retrocomputing/INS8073/PROGREF.PDF>

If you want docs that delve more deeply into Tiny Basic (for the MC-1N)

ASCII - <http://www.penguincentral.com/retrocomputing/INS8073/MC-1N.txt>
PDF   - <http://www.penguincentral.com/retrocomputing/INS8073/MC-1N.pdf>

All these resources are pointed to by:
  <http://www.penguincentral.com/retrocomputing/INS8073/>

Feel free to send me questions directly, or post them on the list and
I'll do what I can to answer them.

Enjoy,

-ethan

-- 
Ethan Dicks, A-333-S     Current South Pole Weather at  3-Mar-2008 at 09:30 Z
South Pole Station
PSC 468 Box 400       Temp  -62.0 F (-52.2 C)   Windchill   -95.2 F (-70.7 C)
APO AP 96598          Wind   10.3 kts Grid 80   Barometer 686.3 mb (10391 ft)

Ethan.Dicks at usap.gov            http://penguincentral.com/penguincentral.html