scwilk@sdrc.UUCP (Ken Wilkinson) (04/16/88)
Hello Folks!
Since my last posting I have recieved some very interesting
responses. It now looks like we have sufficient workers and
a potential person to do a port (System V though...). I have
collected the votes and thoughts of responders and have formulated
"THE '532 MANIFESTO" which is enclosed in draft form. If some of
the words seem familiar don't be alarmed, I stole them from your
e-mail :-}.
>In article <235@sdrc.UUCP> I wrote:
> o IBM PC/AT system board replacement, uses present PC cheap
> and availble parts for enclosure , HD and graphics contrlr etc.
>
> o Classic SBC design with SCSI on board memory. Uses a terminal.
>
> o Above with AT type (EGA?) graphics controller chip set.
>
> o design a SBC but have slots for expansion.
>
>
8 - votes for IBM PC/AT system board replacement.
2 - votes for SBC with SCSI and terminal.
1 - vote for SBC with EGA graphics chips.
1 - vote for SBC to place into old Macintosh case.
1- vote passive AT style bus (ala Zenith) with plug-in cpu.
>Software:
>
> o REAL UN*X (BSD, SYS V)
>
> o MINIX (yecchhh, sorry :) )
>
> o MACH
>
> o Other PD OS (check out os.research)
7 - votes for BSD Un*x.
1 - vote for Sys V.
1 - vote for Minix
1 - vote for GNU
Not everyone voted for an OS, (hence the numbers don't add up)
Gee guys, some of you just program to bare metal? :-).
>
> I have a friend who is a dedicated hacker and owns a business
> with the ablility to make PCB's from schematics. I would be
> willing to help translate a schematic to artwork if others are
> will to help design it. Any takers?
>
YES! Enough hardware and software have offered.
-DRAFT DOCUMENT--DRAFT DOCUMENT--DRAFT DOCUMENT--DRAFT DOCUMENT-
The '532 Manifesto
(Appologies to R. Stallman)
Purpose:
Design and build a computer based on the NSC '532 chip set.
The computer will use presently available mass-produced componets to
keep cost as low as possible. Exploit cheap available finished IBM bus
I/O boards, to take advantage of everybody else's volume.
Design will be a modified KISS approach (KISS Plus),
"Keep It Simple Stupid" but as fast as possible!
CPU Design:
Based upon a hardware compatable PC/AT motherboard (size,and
mounting hardware NOT CPU!) to allow use of the IBM type AT enclosures
and power supply.
Features:
o on board SCSI bus for hard disk and tape drive support.
o IBM PC 101 keyboard connection
o 4 to 8 IBM PC periphial slots half XT and half AT style. (depends on
available board area).
o uses at a minimum a Hercules clone display adapter. (at $41 cheaper than
a terminal. CRT about $82, keyboard $61. Total $184). Later, one could
use one of the Super VGA type cards with a NEC M.S. II for X-windows,
PHIGS (which I'm working on now), etc.
o Ethernet , parallel ports, serial ports would use the bus. We might if
enough room put the serial and parallel ports on the motherboard.
o memory will be MAC II style SIMM chips (the fastest we can buy :-})
for 4 to 8 megs (maybe 4 meg with a daughter board for 8 megs)
NO memory expansion bus. If you need more than 8 megs tuff sh*t.
Operating System:
SYS V - First choice.
Minix - Possible, maybe a parallel effort? Race?
BSD was the choice of most respondants, but no one has come forward to
do the port.
Concerns:
o Do we use instruction cache? Is there enough room on the cpu motherboard?
Do we really need it, as the 532 has a burst mode.
o use same serial uarts as ICM and preserve some of the driver code?
o how much memory can we fit?
o bring out internal bus lines to a connector unbuffered?
o Clock speed, multi layers 4,6,8? Cost?
o Memory speed, wait states.
-END OF DRAFT--END OF DRAFT--END OF DRAFT--END OF DRAFT--END OF DRAFT-
Please comment by e-mail on the concerns and design. I will firm up
"THE '532 MANIFESTO" and then we can begin the real work!
Ken Wilkinson (uunet!sdrc!scwilk)
SDRC
2000 Eastman Dr.
Milford, Ohio 45014 (Cincinnati)
(513)-576-2569
Above words are mine and others not the company's. Not responsible
for anything you might think of now or ever.
"We now have the ultimate in Office Automation, all six printers are down"
Ken W.ian@sibyl.eleceng.ua.OZ (Ian Dall) (04/25/88)
Can I take it from all this that NS haven't seen fit to produce an ICM-32532? (I have heard they are doing a VME bus board.) Anyone from NS care to comment on the non-existance of an ICM-32532. My personal guess is that they think the SCSI/Flexbus combination used on the ICMs wouldn't have enough bandwidth to really keep a '532 busy. The impression I have with my ICM-3216 based system is that for typical tasks (say a "make"), performance is limited by filesytem throughput. This is with SysV filesystem, the BSD filesystem would no doubt be a substantial improvement. Now, if the '532 lives up to its claims you have a ten fold increase in CPU and with one SCSI bus and one AT bus it will quite likely spend most of it's time waiting for IO. It seems to me that better overall performance might be obtained from a '332 system with the money saved being spent on a better IO system(*). Of course, maybe you just want to have the fastest CPU on the block, and there ARE those compute intensive jobs. (*) Probably faster disk(s). With the SysV file system at least, seek time seems to be much more critical than transfer rate. Buying disks with faster seek times gets difficult as well as expensive. Spreading the filesystems over several controllers must help but, in a single user environment, it won't speed up a typical "make" or "find" much since most (all?) the files will be on the same filesystem. There ought to be a way to spread a filesystem across n medium speed disks in such a way as to minimise average seek times. Do any operating systems support this I wonder?