henry@ginger.sri.com (Henry Pasternack) (02/02/90)
Thanks, again, to the people who have been sending me advice on my 68000 project. I'm sorry that some of the replies have been bouncing, and I can't figure out how to get back to you personally. But don't think I don't appreciate the feedback! I have another question. I think I can extort an old IBM PC out of my father. Would it be possible, convenient, or advantageous to build a system on the PC bus, and basically configure the Intel chip as a co-processor? The advantage would be that the PC motherboard would intially serve as a development environment for the 68020, with a lot of software tools already available in MS-DOS. Later, the 68020 would become the focus of the system, and the PC would sort of fade into the background (where it belongs). It would be convenient if the full power of the 68020 could be exploited, while allowing compatibility with standard PC peripheral boards. Comments? Is this just a complication? Has anyone ever tried such an approach? -Henry
rsnider@xrtll.UUCP (Richard Snider) (02/06/90)
In article <8732@unix.SRI.COM> henry@ginger.sri.com (Henry Pasternack) writes: > >PC bus, and basically configure the Intel chip as a co-processor? >The advantage would be that the PC motherboard would intially >serve as a development environment for the 68020, with a lot of Don't do it! The PC's IO bus is not only a pain since you have to make the signals from your card (I assume you are proposing a card) look like the intel mess, but it is also SLOW! It almost wants 1 microsecond for each fetch (At 8MHz). That is downright silly since the 68020 supports a much higher read/write rate than the IO bus in a PC could ever concieve of. Not to mention, the GCC compilers available (which are free) will not run on 80286 since they demand all 32 bits, so there goes the low cost development environment. If anything I would say the PC could make a nice IO device, like a bootstrap loader. Richard Snider rsnider@xrtll
jharkins@sagpd1.UUCP (Jim Harkins) (02/16/90)
In article <8732@unix.SRI.COM> henry@ginger.sri.com (Henry Pasternack) writes: > I think I can extort an old IBM PC out of my father. Would it >be possible, convenient, or advantageous to build a system on the >PC bus, and basically configure the Intel chip as a co-processor? Wow, the worlds first home-brew Amiga! Wonder if it's cheaper for him to do this himself or just buy an Amiga? jim "I've found by and large that when the flu gets you, the best thing to do (other than go to bed, which is boring) is to go conquer something." -- Jerry Pournelle