ward@cfa.harvard.EDU (Steve Ward) (11/15/88)
$$ VERY LONG MESSAGE $$
...
What follows is a very loose summary of the "who and what" among the
messages sent to me or posted that I construed to contain a note of
volunteerism, or at least "join me" -ism.
Briefly, there appear to be at least two 32K Assemblers, two C Compilers,
some serious Minix porting work, and several hardware design efforts.
Add a little sharing, and presto!
===========================================
!!!!!!! SOMEONE PLEASE VOLUNTEER AS THE 32K SOFTWARE ARCHIVER AND
GENERAL SOFTWARE KEEPER !!!!!!!
Such a noble person will be expected to maintain an archive of the
contributed 32K software, making it available to those who request it.
Naturally, email is preferred, but even distribution on MSDOS floppy
or somesuch will work. Recovery of actual costs for distributing and
mailing would be well in order. A summary of what (description, version,
etc) is in the archive should be available via email.
And how about everyone sending your software contributions ASAP once an
archivist is found? Public Domain contributions are GREAT, but copy-
righted software with free non-commercial distribution is also quite
reasonable. How about it?
===========================================
********
Steven M. Ward ward@cfa.harvard.edu
-------------- --------------------
Snail Mail: Steven Ward
Smithsonian Institution
60 Garden Street, mail stop 39
Cambridge, MA 02138
(617)495-7392
It is evident that most want a moderately priced system based on the older
32K parts that are "established." This seems to be more of an economic
issue rather than technical or performance. So.....
People: please send me your schematics (on tissue paper is okay, as long
as they are more or less legible :-) of any and all 32016, 32032, CG16, or
other 32K family cpu that fits this description (parts must really be
in production, of course, as in "what's a '132?" I will distill them into
two board designs. Both to plug into the IBM PC/XT bus, one being of the
"slave" variety and one being of the passive backplane "master" variety.
People can review the designs and a choice can be made. I have a CAE
system at my disposal, so variations on a theme are not overly costly
in additional labor.
MMU will be included along with DMA, DRAM, etc. An IBM XT keyboard
interface will too. All suggestions welcomed.
The idea is not to replace or usurp any hardware project now underway.
Duplication is not desired, either. Still, it won't hurt to have
choices. I am willing to plug any PC I/O bus-based design into the
CAE system and generate schematics. Afterword, I figure there are
several possibilities: we can pass the schematics around and arrive
at a concensus to chip and make some blank PC boards, or fail to
arrive at a concensus for such a joint manufacturing effort. Even
with a failure of concensus, I view it as a win as different designs
will get built in any case.
Again, send those schematics - hand drawn sketches are just fine.
Also, could the National People send me the names/numbers of National
data sheets, app. notes, software reference manuals, etc that would be
useful in these endeavors? Sometimes it is hard to get the proper
docs from the distributors and field reps unless documentation requests
are very specific. A National Documentation List suitable to these
efforts can be summarized to the net.
********
Peter Camilleri peter@ists.UUCP
--------------- ---------------
Generally interested in helping on software side.
Elan Data Technology Inc. peter@ists.yorku.ca
836 Yonge St., Toronto, Ontario, uunet!mnetor!yunexus!ists!peter
CANADA M4W 2H1 (416) 968-6668
********
Richard Rodman
--------------
8329 Ivy Glen Ct.
Manassa, VA 22110.
Richard is presently coordinating a project to build a 32k system.
He has written a 32K assembler.
He is the editor and publisher of a 32K newsletter.
********
Brian Haug haug@Columbia.NCR.COM
---------- ---------------------
He has modified a 68K C Compiler to generate 32K (assembler?) code.
********
Bruce Culbertson culberts@hplabs.hp.com
---------------- ----------------------
He has written an assembler, linker, and library for the 32K and is well
along in porting Minix. Also, he has designed a 32K single board computer.
The software can be used as cross-development tools running on MSDOS and
Unix machines, and probably others with a decent C compiler, I gather.
Also, he has made small modifications to GCC to make it compatible with
his assembler.
********
George Scolaro george@wombat.UUCP
-------------- ------------------
He has designed and built a simple CG16 board which will interface to
the 32081 or 32381 FPU, with the 32381 it DOES support the
new transcendental primitives.
"I have built a simple CG16 board that runs at 15 Mhz, uses 4 256k x 4 bit
120 ns drams, a NS32CG821 (new version of DP8421), DUART, couple of gates,
buffers and latches and 2 256k bit eproms, and an e2rom. The total chip
count is 27 devices."
Perhaps George can be talked into helping out on either the hardware
or software sides, or both!
********
Dave Rand {pyramid|hoptoad|sun|vsi1}!daver!dlr
--------- ------------------------------------
"The PD-32 design is free. It has been published in Micro-C, and
reprints are available from them."
I gather Dave was the designer of the PD-32, or otherwise a principal in
that effort.
********
Dermot Tynan dtynan@sultra.UUCP
------------ ------------------
"I don't mind doing the design. Provided I get help/support. On top of
that, the one thing I hate worse than wirewrapping, is slaving over
schematics. If someone else wants the task of schematic generation,
I'll happily send him/her some drawings on tissue paper :-) "
********
Scott Edwards sedwards@esunix.UUCP
------------- --------------------
"A friend of mine and I worked on building something like this last
spring (with a 32016 because of $$$), but put it on the back burner
because of a perceived lack of interest. I am willing to discuss
taking it up again if anyone is interested, please e-mail me."
********
Josef Moellers josef@ugun21.UUCP
-------------- -----------------
"If somebody would care to coordinate, I would be willing to participate
in the development of the system. Being a bit further away than
"just around the corner" 8-), I would offer to produce some software."
paper mail: e-mail:
c/o Nixdorf Computer AG USA: uunet!linus!nixbur!nixpbe!mollers.pad
Abt. EG-3 !USA: mcvax!unido!nixpbe!mollers.pad
Unterer Frankfurter Weg
D-4790 Paderborn
tel.: (+49) 5251 104691
********
Marcus S. Lewis mlewis@unocss.UUCP
--------------- ------------------
"Two items: There is indeed a cheap 32k board available, and there is some
experience with them: they work.
Computer Talk
1400 Sacramento Terrace
Plano, TX 75075
(214) 424-4036
This is based on the 32016 Designer's kit, uses a 328x9 DRAM controller, 16450
UART and up to 1 Mb of RAM. It comes with a version of the TDS modified for
use with the board and a disk with a PC-based terminal emulator. And Docs.
I got this data from the upgrade I got from NSC (free upgrade BTW), and it
was published in the NS32 News newsletter published by Richard Rodman, our
fearless and outspoken leader.
If you are interested in our project, want to help, comment, criticize,
let me know, but contact him for sure. The next issue is due Real Soon Now.
My real address is 5114 Lafayette Ave, Omaha NE 68132 "
********yuval@taux02.UUCP (Gideon Yuval) (11/16/88)
Ran Ginosar (ran@techsel.bitnet) and Eitan Froumine (eitan@techsel.bitnet), of
the Technion EE department, have ported Doug Comer's XINU to the 32K. Cf. their
EE Pub no. 640 (8/87), "Porting XINU on NS32000".
Their Paper-mail address is:
Department of Electrical Engineering
Technion -- Israel Institute of Technology
Haifa 32000
Israel
--
Gideon Yuval, yuval@taux01.nsc.com, +972-2-690992 (home) ,-52-522255(work)
Paper-mail: National Semiconductor, 6 Maskit St., Herzliyah, Israel
TWX: 33691, fax: +972-52-558322