heller.umass-cs@rand-relay.arpa (10/26/83)
From: Robert (LISPer DM)Heller <heller.umass-cs@rand-relay.arpa> There is an even cheaper (and easier to setup) 68000 system which can run CP/M-68K: the Sage II. A miniumnally configured Sage II has 128K RAM and one 5.25" DSDD (80TRK) disk drive (640K bytes/disk). It goes for around $3K. A maximumally configured Sage II (512K RAM, two disks) goes for about $5K. You will need a terminal (RS-232, upto 19.2K BAUD). The Sage II has two RS-232 ports, one for the console and one for a modem or serial printer (or other RS-232 I/O device), a parallel printer port (centronics compatable), and a IEEE-488 bus interface. The Sage II comes with the UCSD p-System, but CP/M-68K is available (from Sage) for $350.00. If you have enough memory, the Sage can be configured (software control) to use the "extra" memory as a memory disk. (Just about all of the CP/M-68K utilities can run in 128K memory.) A minimum configures Sage II can be upgraded to a maximum configured Sage II - the board has sockets for 512K RAM and the disk controler handles two drives - just a mater of pluging in chips (for more memory) and/or pluging in another disk drive. CP/M-68K comes with an assembler (relocatable, no macros), C compiler (no floats but otherwise UNIX compatable (except for multi-processing stuff, of course)), ED (dumb TECO/SOS like text editor), as well as various misc. utilities (stat, copy, pip, etc.). Sage has MINCE for $100.00. A print-spooler utility is available from Media Research, Ltd. (211 Grantwood Drive, Amherst, MA 01002) for $50.00. We (Media Research, Ltd.) are working on a Common-LISP compatable lisp system for CP/M-68K (don't hold your breath - probably 6+ months yet before it is available). For some $$$ a Sage II can be upgraded to a Sage IV - this needs another board - gives another 512K RAM (1Meg total) and upto 4 5.25" hard disks (5-20 Meg each) - software compatable. (The Sage IV adds 4 terminal ports and can be configured for upto 6 users, some of which can use CP/M-68K and some can use the p-System.) We at Media Research, Ltd. have a maximum Sage II which we use for software developement under CP/M-68K and the machine has worked fine since we purchased it on Apr 1, 1983. While CP/M-68K is a rather simple-minded O/S, it runs fine on a small machine like the Sage. A friend of mine had a Wicat 150 (also a 68000 based system) with UNIX, but since the Wicat only had a 5M hard disk, much of the UNIX utilities were missing (very fustrating). Another friend used Idris (Whitesmith's UNIX clone) and found it lacking many usefull features (like a debugger!). CP/M-68K, being a fairly small and simple O/S, works fine on small, low-cost machines. If I had a bigger machine (like a SUN with an 80Meg disk) I probably would be running Berkeley UNIX. Robert Heller (arpa: Heller%umass-cs@rand-relay, csent: Heller@umass-cs)
andree@uokvax.UUCP (11/09/83)
#R:sri-arpa:-1302500:uokvax:3400006:000:299 uokvax!andree Oct 30 15:26:00 1983 One minor correction to Robert's summary of CP/M-68K. The C compiler DOES NOT correctly support structure initialization. It initializes a structure as an array of ints (no matter what it really is). Shades of version 6! Note: This is a CP/M-68K 1.1 system. They may have fixed this sense. <mike