ken@gatech.edu (Ken Seefried iii) (01/20/88)
--
This may be a bit of ancient history...but does anyone remeber the
Pascal Microengine? Who made it and what processor did it use?
I used one back in the Dark Ages ( c. 1980 ).
______________________________________________________________________________
Kenneth J. Seefried iii | Internet: ken@gatech.edu
P.O. Box 30104 | Bitnet: ccastks@gitvm1
School of Information & Computer Science| uucp:
Georgia Tech, Atlanta GA 30332 | ...!{backbone site}!gatech!ken
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~allyn@sdcsvax.UCSD.EDU (Allyn Fratkin) (01/21/88)
In article <16946@gatech.edu>, ken@gatech.edu (Ken Seefried iii) writes: > This may be a bit of ancient history...but does anyone remeber the > Pascal Microengine? Who made it and what processor did it use? > I used one back in the Dark Ages ( c. 1980 ). the pascal microengine was from western digital. quoting from the march 1979 "WD/90 Pascal MICROENGINE Reference Manual", "the WD/900 Pascal MICROENGINEtm Single Board Computer, an 8 by 16-inch board containing containing a WD/9000 16-bit microprocessor that directly executes UCSD's Pascal p-code, 64K bytes of memory, 2 RS-232 asynchronous serial ports, 2 8-bit parallel ports, and a Floppy Disk Controller;" "The WD/9000 processor is a hardware realization of UCSD's pseudo P-machine. The processor is comprised of five LSI/MOS circuits, each contained in a 40-pin package. The individual circuits are: o The Data Chip, containing the microinstruction decoder, the arithmetic and logic unit (ALU), and the register file. o The Control Chip, containing the macroinstruction decoder, protions of the control circuitry, the microinstruction counter, and input/output control logic. o Three 22 by 512-bit MICROM chips, containing processor microinstructions." there was even a special version of UCSD pascal (version III) for the microengine. i used one a little bit (we still have 3 sitting around unused) but they were mostly useless because the disk format they used was not compatible with our other machines. if you have any other questions, let me know. allyn fratkin, pascal project, ucsd -- From the virtual mind of Allyn Fratkin allyn@sdcsvax.ucsd.edu or EMU Project {ucbvax, decvax, ihnp4} U.C. San Diego !sdcsvax!allyn
csnjr@its63b.ed.ac.uk (Nick Rothwell) (01/21/88)
In article <16946@gatech.edu> ken@gatech.edu (Ken Seefried iii) writes: >This may be a bit of ancient history...but does anyone remeber the >Pascal Microengine? Who made it and what processor did it use? >I used one back in the Dark Ages ( c. 1980 ). I've never used one (or even seen one), but I've got the book! The machine was built by Western Digital. I think the processor was custom-designed, but I can't remember. At home I'm running the same UCSD p-System on a similar machine, a Terak 8510, although this is a bona fide LSI-11. -- Nick Rothwell, Laboratory for Foundations of Computer Science, Edinburgh. nick%lfcs.ed.ac.uk@nss.cs.ucl.ac.uk <Atlantic Ocean>!mcvax!ukc!lfcs!nick ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ ~~ "Nothing's forgotten. Nothing is ever forgotten." - Herne
drc@dbase.UUCP (Dennis Cohen) (01/21/88)
In article <16946@gatech.edu>, ken@gatech.edu (Ken Seefried iii) writes: > -- > > This may be a bit of ancient history...but does anyone remeber the > Pascal Microengine? Who made it and what processor did it use? > I used one back in the Dark Ages ( c. 1980 ). > It was Western Digital and used the WD32000. You can get more information on this from USUS, the UCSD System User Society. I would contact Pecan Systems in Brooklyn to get more information. Dennis Cohen Ashton-Tate Glendale Development Center dBASE Mac Development Team
jws@hpcllf.HP.COM (John Stafford) (01/22/88)
It seems to me that Western Digital made it; the processor was
microcoded to be a P-machine. Whether it was made from a standard
bit-slice or was proprietary silicon I don't know.
John Stafford -- Hewlett Packard Computer Language Lab
{allegra,decvax,ihnp4,ucbvax}!hplabs!hpda!jws
{fortune,sun,thirdi,ucbvax} !hpda !jwsmjy@sdti.UUCP (Michael J. Young) (01/23/88)
In article <16946@gatech.edu> ken@gatech.edu (Ken Seefried iii) writes: >-- > >This may be a bit of ancient history...but does anyone remeber the >Pascal Microengine? Who made it and what processor did it use? >I used one back in the Dark Ages ( c. 1980 ). The Pascal Microengine, if I remember correctly, was actually the old LSI-11/2 chipset (made by Western Digital for DEC) with new "microcode" to handle the P-code instruction set. I never heard much about it after DEC started making their own LSI chips. -- Mike Young - Software Development Technologies, Inc., Sudbury MA 01776 UUCP : {decvax,harvard,linus,mit-eddie}!necntc!necis!mrst!sdti!mjy Internet : mjy%sdti.uucp@harvard.harvard.edu Tel: +1 617 443 5779
cdl@mplvax.nosc.MIL (Carl Lowenstein) (01/23/88)
In article <4516@sdcsvax.UCSD.EDU> allyn@sdcsvax.UCSD.EDU (Allyn Fratkin) writes: -In article <16946@gatech.edu>, ken@gatech.edu (Ken Seefried iii) writes: -> This may be a bit of ancient history...but does anyone remeber the -> Pascal Microengine? Who made it and what processor did it use? -> I used one back in the Dark Ages ( c. 1980 ). - -the pascal microengine was from western digital. - -"The WD/9000 processor is a hardware realization of UCSD's pseudo P-machine. -The processor is comprised of five LSI/MOS circuits, each contained in -a 40-pin package. The individual circuits are: - - o The Data Chip, containing the microinstruction decoder, the arithmetic - and logic unit (ALU), and the register file. - - o The Control Chip, containing the macroinstruction decoder, protions of - the control circuitry, the microinstruction counter, and input/output - control logic. - - o Three 22 by 512-bit MICROM chips, containing processor microinstructions." Just to add a few bits more information -- the same WD processor on a different board and with different MICROM chips was sold in large volume as the DEC LSI-11. Also the 11/2, on yet another board, although by that time DEC was making their own chips rather than buying them from Western D. -- carl lowenstein marine physical lab u.c. san diego {ihnp4|decvax|ucbvax} !sdcsvax!mplvax!cdl
eao@anumb.UUCP (e.a.olson) (01/28/88)
In article <16946@gatech.edu>, ken@gatech.edu (Ken Seefried iii) writes: > -- > > This may be a bit of ancient history...but does anyone remeber the > Pascal Microengine? Who made it and what processor did it use? > I used one back in the Dark Ages ( c. 1980 ). > it was made by western digital; the same chipset they licensed to dec for the lsi-11 5 chips as i recall, 2 used for microcode Andy Hay +---------------------------------------+ ATT-BL Ward Hill MA | "AHH-CHOO" -- Cmdr. Data | ihnp4!mvuxq!adh +---------------------------------------+
bill@trotter.usma.edu (Bill Gunshannon) (01/30/88)
In article <159@anumb.UUCP>, eao@anumb.UUCP (e.a.olson) writes: > In article <16946@gatech.edu>, ken@gatech.edu (Ken Seefried iii) writes: > > This may be a bit of ancient history...but does anyone remeber the > > Pascal Microengine? Who made it and what processor did it use? > > I used one back in the Dark Ages ( c. 1980 ). > > it was made by western digital; > the same chipset they licensed to dec for the lsi-11 > 5 chips as i recall, 2 used for microcode > Does that mean I can convert my LSI-11 to a Pascal Microengine?? Where does one get the necessary chips to do this??? I have a couple of TERAK 8510's running UCSD Pascal and it would sure be nice to cut out the middle man. :-) bill gunshannon UUCP: {philabs}\ US SNAIL: Martin Marietta Data Systems {phri } >!trotter.usma.edu!bill USMA, Bldg 600, Room 26 {sunybcs}/ West Point, NY 10996 RADIO: KB3YV PHONE: WORK (914)446-7747 AX.25: KB3YV @ K3RLI PHONE: HOME (914)565-5256
milne@ICS.UCI.EDU (Alastair Milne) (02/08/88)
>Does that mean I can convert my LSI-11 to a Pascal Microengine?? >Where does one get the necessary chips to do this??? >I have a couple of TERAK 8510's running UCSD Pascal and it would sure be >nice to cut out the middle man. :-) >bill gunshannon The MicroEngine and the Terak are fundamentally different beasts. Quite apart from the fact that the MicroEngine runs an entirely different microprogram, it is word-addressed, whereas the Terak is byte-addressed (this was to gain 128K of memory). Also, the III.x p-code which is hardwired into the MicroEngine is very different from I.5 and II.x -- I assume you're running one of the latter on the Terak. Your code segments would never even start to run on the MicroEngine. (This has always been the real obstacle to moving compiled p-code between machines: not the differences between machines, but the differences between p-code versions.) Other problems: the MicroEngine has no reserved memory, whereas the Terak sets aside 8K as a Datamedia emulator. This same range also serves the Terak as a set of illegal addresses, to trap NIL-pointer references. The MicroEngine has no way of doing that. The MicroEngine gave the p-System its first (very buggy) version of tasking, requiring semaphore-handling p-codes. The Terak, as you well know, has no concurrency. In contrast to the Terak's sophisticated interrupt structure, which allows not only asynchronous device I/O but asynchronous memory access, the interrupts of the MicroEngine are, depending on the system version, either absent, unreliable, or very simple. The Terak is the only machine that supports the GRAPHICS: device (#3:), and the special UNITWRITE(3,...) call to utilise it. Etc., etc., etc. What you might to do is look around to see who might still have a MicroEngine they'd be willing to give or sell you. Of the places that were selling them when they were being made, I imagine most are now out of business; but Wicat Industries in Utah made a version, and might still be able to help you. Also, a friend of mine bought for himself a MicroEngine released by Pensee; you might try to find them. As a long shot, you might even enquire of Western Digital whether they know of anybody who still has them -- WD never packaged them themselves: they only made the chipsets and disk controllers. Good luck. Hang onto those Teraks -- they have virtues that have rarely been seen since. Alastair Milne, UC Irvine
bill@trotter.usma.edu (Bill Gunshannon) (02/09/88)
In article <11691@brl-adm.ARPA>, milne@ICS.UCI.EDU (Alastair Milne) writes: > > >Does that mean I can convert my LSI-11 to a Pascal Microengine?? > >Where does one get the necessary chips to do this??? > >I have a couple of TERAK 8510's running UCSD Pascal and it would sure be > >nice to cut out the middle man. :-) > >bill gunshannon > > > The MicroEngine and the Terak are fundamentally different beasts. Quite > apart from the fact that the MicroEngine runs an entirely different > microprogram, it is word-addressed, whereas the Terak is byte-addressed > (this was to gain 128K of memory). I don't know what TERAK you have but mine has 32K of word addressable memory of which only 28K is really memory. The rest are vectors. > Also, the III.x p-code which is > hardwired into the MicroEngine is very different from I.5 and II.x -- > I assume you're running one of the latter on the Terak. I am running IV.0 and re-compiling all my programs wouldn't be a problem. It would be more than offset by getting rid of a hog like IV.0 is on the TERAK. After you load the O/S you end out with somewhere around 12K words but because of it being word addressed it really looks like much less to an application. >>> Much text on the wonders of the TERAK deleted to save space <<< > > Good luck. Hang onto those Teraks -- they have virtues that have rarely > been seen since. > Well they do make good door-stops. :-) You want to buy some??? CHEAP??? bill gunshannon UUCP: {philabs}\ US SNAIL: Martin Marietta Data Systems {phri } >!trotter.usma.edu!bill USMA, Bldg 600, Room 26 {sunybcs}/ West Point, NY 10996 RADIO: KB3YV PHONE: WORK (914)446-7747 AX.25: KB3YV @ K3RLI PHONE: HOME (914)565-5256