jax@well.UUCP (Jack J. Woehr) (02/01/90)
New SBC68K 68000-Based Single Board Computer from Vesta
A new 68000 single board computer from Vesta Technology
aimed at medium volume OEM applications features an on-
board ROM resident Forth development environment that
greatly increases the productivity of the product
development cycle. The low cost of the board ($295 in
quantity one with 64K RAM) makes it practical to use the
same board for both production runs and product development.
The 8"x4" board runs at 8 or 16 MHz and provides
socketing for up to 128K of battery backed RAM and up to
256K of ROM. A battery backed real-time clock, a
parallel printer port, ports for a 4x5 keypad and a 4 line x
40 character LCD display provide easy to use application
interfacing. Two serial ports, one configured as an
RS-232 and one as an RS-485 with addressable multidrop
capabilities, allow extensive firmware supported
communications facilities. All the bus signals are carried
to an expansion connector for expansion boards which can
support a total of 16 Mbytes of memory and a variety of
custom A/D, D/A, and digital I/O configurations available
from the company. The board also hosts a watchdog timer to
assure program control of board status and requires only 650
mA at +5 Volts power. A negative voltage generator (for
RS-232) is provided on the board.
The development language in ROM is a direct threaded
32-bit (address and data) extended version of Forth-83 with
multi-tasking and assembler capabilities. The language also
provides for autostart of ROM resident application code.
The board requires only a PC and a ROM programmer for a
complete development environment. A PC resident
communications package provided with the board (VestaComm)
permits use of the PC disk to transparently store and
download code and data to the 68000 board while acting as a
console to the 68000.
The pricing and ease of development features target the
board as a low cost 68000 engine for products requiring
large amounts of computing power.
For more information and photos, contact:
Mike McGinnis, Director of Marketing
Vesta Technology
7100 West 44th Ave.
Wheat Ridge, CO 80033
(303) 422-8088