Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 04:24:44 -0500
From: "Roy J. Tellason" <rtellason at verizon.net>
Subject: Re: EPROM programmer
On Friday 15 February 2008 04:15, M H Stein wrote:
>> The manual has pretty clear instructions for changing the baud rate, up to
>> 19.2 (pp. 8&9); you'll need 2x27128 unless you have a second programmer.
>Eh? I don't have the manual with mine, but 2x27128 shouldn't be a problem,
>I guess.
-----
With the version 1 S/W you have to burn a copy of the system ROM first in
order to patch it and then burn the final version. Version 2 of the S/W has an
option (12) to copy the system ROM to RAM (if you have enough installed)
so you only need to burn one 27128.
===
>> See MCM68764 & MCM68766 (24 pin 8Kx8)
>I wasn't aware of these. Though I suppose I'd still need an adapter, for the
>programmer? I'll look for some data on them.
----
Not necessarily; the V2 S/W has provisions for user-defined EPROM
parameters, but I don't know offhand whether the hardware can accommodate
68754/6s (or 2532s for that matter).
mike
> IIRC the lead designers were Don Butler and Ken Naife (sp?) and the
> manager was Steve Maine (all English to split hairs, although they had
> migrated to Long Island from GI in Glenrothes, Scotland)
Thank you for the correction. These were all memories that I hadn't thought
about since the late 70's. Looking at the data book scans, the 1640 existed
well before I spent any time there. I did remember the Glenrothes connection
but not much more of the details. The point was that the designers weren't
very likely to have any connection with a west coast company (SMS).
This all was my first exposure to IC fab and design. Pretty interesting stuff for
a kid like me who grew up in rural Wisconsin..
> Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 13:01:04 -0500
> From: Dave McGuire
> Doubtful, as it's just the same architecture, and far from the
> same implementation. The 8X30x chips are bipolar, if memory serves. But
> either way, I'm not sure what the point would be, aside from possibly
> building new boards using an existing 8X30x MSCP implementation.
As one who has had the extreme displeasure of programming both the
8X300 and an 8X305, I'd have to say that the two have about as much
in common with a PIC as a pocket knife to an CNC EDM system. The
instruction sets aren't even close, nor is the data path
architecture. In some respects, the bipolar chip has a bit more
flexibility (e.g. variable-length operations and an "execute"
instruction) even with its limitation of an instruction set of size
8.
On the other hand, the PIC1640, developed for the CP1600 in 1976 is
clearly recognizable as a cousin to the modern PIC, right down to the
W register.
The odd thing was that the PIC1640 used a 12-bit instruction word,
while the CP1600 used 10 bits of the instruction word, even though it
was a 16-bit CPU. The CP1600 wasn't particularly deficient in I/O
operations--it simply didn't have any. Couple that with a 1MHz clock
and multi-word instructions and you had a very slow system, even
compared to a 2MHz 8080. On the other hand, the instruction set was
very pleasant and fairly orthogonal--it might remind one of a PDP-11
instruction set.
Do you have a cite that states that the PIC1640 is a direct
descendent of the SMS 300? Microchip certainly doesn't admit it--and
I'd be hard pressed to find the similarity beyond both being Harvard
architecture binary CPUs.
Cheers,
Chuck
> Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 10:38:24 +0100 (CET)
> From: Christian Corti
> And what's special about that? Historically a "computer" is a person who
> does computations (what else?), this job description may well originate
> from the 19th century. And a "compiler" generally is/was an insult for
> someone, mostly for scientists/students and the like, because that meant
> that they "compiled" their work mostly/completely from foreign texts.
Indeed. I recall that the preface to the ANSI FORTRAN specifications
>from at least F77 state that no attempt is being made to specify what
is meant by a "computer" and that it could well be a human being.
I'm not sure, but I think the CODASYL documents say the same thing.
I also recall a dialogue with one of the WWII codebreakers where the
"Computer Room" was where the folks using pencil and paper and
comptometers worked.
Cheers,
Chuck
Al Kossov said:
> That seems highly unlikely. The PIC was being worked on at GI on
> Long Island when I was doing a project for GI in the late 70's on
> a CP-1600 system. The designers were Scottish. I tried to convince
them
> to make the architecture more like the 1600's (ie. PDP-11 like)
because
> I thought the 11 was a better architecture than what they were coming
up
> with.
IIRC the lead designers were Don Butler and Ken Naife (sp?) and the
manager was Steve Maine (all English to split hairs, although they had
migrated to Long Island from GI in Glenrothes, Scotland) who had earlier
worked on the Mattel games chips. This design team was earlier the top
end of the Hughes Microelectronics design group based in Weybridge
(where I also worked) but split off to join the embryonic GI in
Glenrothes. The GI Glenrothes facility was actually started up by a
breakaway group of the bulk of the senior management of Elliots
Microelectronics also in Glenrothes when GEC took the decision to move
the facility south and amalgamate it with some other scraps of GEC's
empire. Oddly I also worked for both Elliott's and later GEC's
microelectronics companies - a small incestuous world in those days. The
PIC at that time was an nmos design and the first of the cmos family was
still being worked on when I left GI in 1982.
regards
Bob Adamson
Where was all the technology in 1900?
Railways - Signaling systems, Switches(Points) control.
Warships - Gun control and ranging. Navigation.
Telephone systems
Wireless
There must have been something computer like in that lot somewhere.
-----Original Message-----
From: cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org
[mailto:cctech-bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of woodelf
Sent: 15 February 2008 14:54
To: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Re: Computer in 1900
Brent Hilpert wrote:
> To be realisitic about what might have been accomplished in 1900 the
> whole issue of building a large system of hundreds/thousands of
> components needs to be looked at more seriously. Will raised the issue
> for tubes, but it applies to all the other components as well,
> regarding reliability, uniformity and stability of characteristics.
> The idea of building such large systems was considered daunting or
> simply implausible even in the 1940's, after decades of development of
components - even regarding something as seemingly simple as resistors.
I think at one time you could get resistors with a 50% range of
tolarance when they first came out, say around the 1900's.
> Or, for example, solid-state diodes: the discovery may have been made
> in 1874, but in the early 1900s the only thing actually available
> (TMK) was the cat's whisker (a tad finicky) - forget about building
> anything utilising more than a couple of them.
And you piss off the cat making your diode.
> Then there's achieving a stable power supply.
Well you would have your own power plant -- coal, gas ( as in gas lamps)
or hydro-electric.
> ..so, depends on where you want to draw the line between concept and
practice.
>
> The principles/theory of digital systems implementation may be
> straighforward, the practical reality when dealing with
> unreliable/variable components isn't so (including tubes); in
> particular if you don't have some heavily-non-linear device to base
> your basic gate design around. In 1900 there was very little in the
> electrical domain that was reliable or consistent for the purposes
being discussed.
>
Its a while since my last update so here's my current collection.
RAINBOW
Rainbow
Fully working on CP/M and DOS but the VR201 has the mould spot
problem.
Doin' a bit of work here. The tube has a glass faceplate held on
by a thick (1/8")
layer of silicone clear adhesive. That's where the spots are.
Anybody know of a solvent for this stuff?
PDP8
DECMate III - Boots but I have no software for it.
PDP-11
11/94 x 2 but CPU boards missing and too expensive to buy.
I have a vague idea about DEC emulator running on a
PC board with a PCI to QBUS bridge. (ie Fake it!!)
PRO350 Runs POS ok
PRO380 This weekends project.
VAX
VAX Station 3100 - Runs DEC windows but I need to reset the system
password
4000 M200 Running VMS 7.3 but Ethernet I/F not working
4000 M300 Was Running VMS 7.3 but will not fully boot (A VMS
reload I think!)
4000 M500 Top Door ,CPU board, Drives and Console section front
panel missing.
VT's
VT240
VT320
VT330
VT420
A ton of DEC Documentation.
Rod Smallwood
The DecCollector.
> And what's special about that? Historically a "computer" is a person who
> does computations (what else?), this job description may well originate
> from the 19th century.
Yes, it does. I believe it was in use in Babbage's time.
France did a really big project to compute sets of tables,
and they had a big workforce of computers to draw on.
It seems that a lot of hairdressers were idle because the
powdered wigs had fallen out of favor.
BLS
> Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2008 14:58:20 -0600
> From: Jules Richardson
> Interesting - I need to properly digest that (and see if I can get at the
> diagrams anywhere; maybe that's a pay service). Interesting that it was
> from the Long Now lot, too.
It's all online at http://www.uspto.gov Don't fall for those
services offering to sell you copy. It's all there on the gummint
site.
Cheers,
Chuck
Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 02:57:08 -0500
From: "Roy J. Tellason" <rtellason at verizon.net>
Subject: Re: EPROM programmer
On Friday 15 February 2008 01:46, Ethan Dicks wrote:
> On Fri, Feb 15, 2008 at 01:11:23AM -0500, Roy J. Tellason wrote:
> > I have the 8052-BASIC based one that Steve Ciarcia had in an article in
> > Byte, and that uses a serial connection. Only at 1200 baud, though,
> > for some reason.
>
> 4K doesn't take _that_ long to push over 1200 bps...
No, it doesn't. It's just a minor annoyance, which is probably why I only
gripe about it every now and then nad hvaen't really gotten around to doing
anything about it... :-)
-----------------
The manual has pretty clear instructions for changing the baud rate, up to 19.2
(pp. 8&9); you'll need 2x27128 unless you have a second programmer.
========
> > Replacing a CBM Kernal ROM is going to need an adapter, as the eprom has
> > more pins. Are you into making those or do you know of a source for
> > them?
>
> Depending on which model of CBM you have, there's a no-adapter solution:
> for PETs that take 2332 ROMs (i.e., *not* the old Static PETs), the 2532
> is a drop-in EPROM. Not the 2732... the 2532. I have a few of them, some
> from the old days (with PET firmware on them) and a few blanks that I've
> picked up over the years when I was already ordering from some place like
> B.G. Micro.
>
> I had a $C000 BASIC ROM die in my first PET (the one I got new, when I was
> a kid)... there's now a 2532 in its place.
Hmm. I wasn't thinking PET as much as C64, when I wrote that. The ROMs in
that one were all 24-pin parts, a 4K character rom and the BASIC and Kernal
being 8K, which would need a 2764.
--------------
See MCM68764 & MCM68766 (24 pin 8Kx8)
mike
