night@pawl2.pawl.rpi.edu (Trip Martin) (11/29/88)
There's been considerable argument about whether to use the '532 or the '032 or the '332 or whatever for this system. How about a compromise which would allow most of the same logic to be used with any of the CPUs? I was thinking it would take the form of a small daughterboard which would plug into the main CPU board. The daughterboard would contain only the computing cluster (cpu, mmu, fpu, icu, and tcu, or the appropriate subset). The interface for the daughterboard would be the same across all generations. The main CPU board would contain all the memory, ROM, DMA, etc. to make the system run. It would of course be designed for the '532, but I don't see why it shouldn't also be able to run the earlier chips at slower speeds, unless timing requirements are that radically different across the 32000 series. -- Trip Martin night@pawl.rpi.edu userffs7@mts.rpi.edu