monitor (04/19/83)
The Micro/T-11 is the central unit of the Micro PDP-11. It implements the standard LSI-11 CPU on a single chip running at 7.5 MHz. The 11/70 on a chip you've been hearing about is the Micro/J-11. It implements the full PDP-11/70 CPU (including memory management) on a two chip set embedded in a single ceramic chip. It runs at 20 MHz (no kidding) and is slated for release in single quantity late 3Q83 to mid 4Q83 -- priced somewhere in the $400-500 range at first. There will probably be a development board built around it that will replace the Micro/T-11 in the 9K PDP-11 system currently available. Little birdies tell me there will be a CMOS version next year. The Micro/J-11 sounds like a real hummer to me, even though you're stuck with the old 64K text/data sizes. In terms of raw performance, we're talking about > 11/70 speed here, because the CPU is on one chip, not several boards talking to each other over a bus. Pat Wood Bell Laboratories Whippany, NJ harpo!whuxg!mphw
gumby (04/20/83)
For 1K for an 11/70 (the J-11), maybe dec will flush the VAX PDP-11 emulation mode and just slough that processing off onto the smaller processor. Yow!
hoffman (04/23/83)
The Micro/J-11 *IS* a CMOS processor. The PDP11 Systems and Options
summary for January-March 1983 (received by me on April 20. harumph.)
indicates that the T-11 is of NMOS construction and the J-11 is of
CMOS construction. The rated performance puts the J-11 at 3 to 5 times
faster than the T-11.
The semiconductor manufacturers' CMOS fabrication techniques have
improved tremendously over the last few years...CMOS no longer means
necessarily slow. Check out the Hitachi HM6147-3 4k x 1 CMOS static
ram chips: access time is 55 ns. The old 5101 256 x 4 chips were
usually around 450 ns though newer chips are faster.
While scanning the components section of the DEC PDP11 summary, I
found a chip they call the DLART. It's a UART that will interface
directly with the T-11 chip and is software compatible with the
DL11. This should make single board implementations easy.
I didn't get a price list with it, but $400-500 sounds about right
for the J-11. Our local DEC office is handing out samples if you
can prove that you're going to buy large quantities for an upcoming
project. We can't. Sigh.
Not afraid to claim that the PDP-11 is far from dead,
Bob Hoffman, Pitt CS
{mcnc,decvax,floyd}!idis!pitt!hoffman
hoffman.pitt@UDel-Relay