dre@sri-unix (07/21/82)
While in Boston for Usenix I visited some old friends at a computer company which makes 68000 based virtual memory machines (if you haven't figured out who it is you probably aren't interested in 68000s). I saw a 12 MHz 68000 (which wasn't quite working--at least in their test bed) and the spec for the 68010 (which is not being sampled yet). In the limited time I had the document in hand I discovered that Motorola changed the stack frame format for various exceptions and introduced other possibly annoying incompatibilities. One can no longer read the high byte of the status register when in user mode, for example. I'm not sure why anyone would want to do that, but if you did your program won't work on a 68010. Also I heard a rumor that they are talking about bringing out four more address lines in the 68 pin JEDEC version. These bits already exist on the 68000, but they don't bond them to pins. The last rumor I heard was that the 68020 exists currently as an SSI/MSI prototype occupying 10 boards of 300 dips each. Dave Emberson ucbvax!Shasta!megatest p.s. Signetics finally has 8 MHz parts.