Re: Other SMS300/8X300/8X305 uses?

[Eric Smith]

On Sat, Dec 24, 2016 at 8:43 AM, Al Kossow  wrote:

> see if he'll dump the firmware. it's identical to the DCA IRMAprint
>

OK, I've asked. Will let you know.

Re: Other SMS300/8X300/8X305 uses?

[Al Kossow]

On 12/24/16 7:43 AM, Al Kossow wrote:
> see if he'll dump the firmware. it's identical to the DCA IRMAprint
> 

the pcb is identical

Re: Other SMS300/8X300/8X305 uses?

[Al Kossow]

see if he'll dump the firmware. it's identical to the DCA IRMAprint

On 12/23/16 8:22 PM, Eric Smith wrote:
> https://twitter.com/yesterbits/status/812415257616457728
> 

Re: Other SMS300/8X300/8X305 uses?

[dwight]

Many early DSP applications were based on shift and add,

rather than multiplying.

Not having a multiplier is not necessarily a problem.

Dwight



From: cctalk <cctalk-boun...@classiccmp.org> on behalf of Eric Smith 
<space...@gmail.com>
Sent: Friday, December 23, 2016 8:22:56 PM
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Re: Other SMS300/8X300/8X305 uses?

https://twitter.com/yesterbits/status/812415257616457728

Re: Other SMS300/8X300/8X305 uses?

[Eric Smith]

https://twitter.com/yesterbits/status/812415257616457728

Re: Other SMS300/8X300/8X305 uses?

[Al Kossow]

likely, that's why I didn't go after the one that was just on eBay
where did you see the picture? I wonder if it's the same as the irmaprint I 
bought

On 12/23/16 3:31 PM, Eric Smith wrote:
> On Nov 27, 2016 8:10 AM, "Al Kossow"  wrote:
>> IRMA card
> 
> Just saw a photo of the inside of an AppleLine, and it also used 8X305. I
> wonder whether Apple might have licensed the IRMA design.
> 

Re: Other SMS300/8X300/8X305 uses?

[Eric Smith]

On Nov 27, 2016 8:10 AM, "Al Kossow"  wrote:
> IRMA card

Just saw a photo of the inside of an AppleLine, and it also used 8X305. I
wonder whether Apple might have licensed the IRMA design.

Re: Other SMS300/8X300/8X305 uses?

[Brent Hilpert]

On 2016-Nov-29, at 1:10 PM, Paul Berger wrote:
> On 2016-11-29 5:00 PM, Eric Smith wrote:
>> On Tue, Nov 29, 2016 at 12:11 PM, Brent Hilpert  wrote:
>> 
>>>  is the 8X300 the 'unusual', proto-DSP device discussed in a chapter of
>>> the Osborne book?
>>> 
>> I don't know whether Osborne described it that way, but since the 8X300 and
>> 8X305 don't have a multiplier, only support 8-bit addition, and can only
>> address 512 bytes of data address space, they wouldn't make very good DSP
>> processors.  However, since all instructions execute in 250 ns, they'd be
>> able to perform some DSP operations faster than contemporary 8-bit
>> microprocessors, which usually took at least 2 us for the simplest
>> instructions, and even longer for fancier instructions.
> 
> I just went and got my Osborne book...
> 
> " The 8X300 is described by its manufacturer as a "microcontroller" rather 
> than a "microprocessor".  This distinction draws attention to the unique 
> capabilities of the 8X300 which make it the most remarkable device described 
> in this book"
> 
> "The 8X300 is designed to serve as a signal processor or logic controller, 
> operating at very high speed."

Those are the statements I was recalling the sentiment of.
I used the phrase proto-DSP in the sense of not-quite a DSP but directed 
towards high data/IO throughput, or precursor to DSPs.

I remember the device from going through the Osborne book, and had wondered 
where it might have been actually used, thinking of medical or mil/avionics, so 
it's interesting to hear in this thread it found use in more 
commonplace/accessible products.

Re: Other SMS300/8X300/8X305 uses?

[Paul Berger]

On 2016-11-29 5:00 PM, Eric Smith wrote:

On Tue, Nov 29, 2016 at 12:11 PM, Brent Hilpert  wrote:


  is the 8X300 the 'unusual', proto-DSP device discussed in a chapter of
the Osborne book?


I don't know whether Osborne described it that way, but since the 8X300 and
8X305 don't have a multiplier, only support 8-bit addition, and can only
address 512 bytes of data address space, they wouldn't make very good DSP
processors.  However, since all instructions execute in 250 ns, they'd be
able to perform some DSP operations faster than contemporary 8-bit
microprocessors, which usually took at least 2 us for the simplest
instructions, and even longer for fancier instructions.


I just went and got my Osborne book...

" The 8X300 is described by its manufacturer as a "microcontroller" 
rather than a "microprocessor".  This distinction draws attention to the 
unique capabilities of the 8X300 which make it the most remarkable 
device described in this book"


"The 8X300 is designed to serve as a signal processor or logic 
controller, operating at very high speed."


Paul.

Re: Other SMS300/8X300/8X305 uses?

[Eric Smith]

On Mon, Nov 28, 2016 at 10:05 PM, Tony Duell  wrote:

> My guess is that EPROMs of that time were not fast enough for the 8X305 to
> run
> flat out. Bipolar PROMs were too expensive in the capacity needed. So
> they copied the code into (fast enough) SRAM at startup.
>

AFAIK, at the time the IRMA II was made, 2K*8 fast(ish) bipolar PROMs were
not much different in price from the 2K*8 static RAMs they used. I think
the purpose most likely was to allow choice of different firmware at
runtime, either for different feature sets, or for diagnostics.

Re: Other SMS300/8X300/8X305 uses?

[Eric Smith]

On Tue, Nov 29, 2016 at 12:11 PM, Brent Hilpert  wrote:

>  is the 8X300 the 'unusual', proto-DSP device discussed in a chapter of
> the Osborne book?
>

I don't know whether Osborne described it that way, but since the 8X300 and
8X305 don't have a multiplier, only support 8-bit addition, and can only
address 512 bytes of data address space, they wouldn't make very good DSP
processors.  However, since all instructions execute in 250 ns, they'd be
able to perform some DSP operations faster than contemporary 8-bit
microprocessors, which usually took at least 2 us for the simplest
instructions, and even longer for fancier instructions.

Re: Other SMS300/8X300/8X305 uses?

[Chuck Guzis]

On 11/29/2016 11:11 AM, Brent Hilpert wrote:

> Admittedly I could go find my copy of the Osborne 70s microprocessors
> book to answer this question but I'm here and the book is somewhere,
> and I suspect one or two people here can answer this without pulling
> out the book - is the 8X300 the 'unusual', proto-DSP device discussed
> in a chapter of the Osborne book?

I don't know if I'd call it a proto-DSP device, but it is/was a bipolar
microcontroller type of device.  The Osborne book does a very poor job
at explaining its functioning--and then tries to fit the book's standard
"move bytes" benchmark to it.

Better is the Signetics "Bipolar LSI Data Manual":

http://bitsavers.informatik.uni-stuttgart.de/pdf/signetics/_dataBooks/1984_Signetics_Bipolar_LSI_Data_Manual.pdf

Which gives a pretty good rundown on the whole family.

--Chuck

Re: Other SMS300/8X300/8X305 uses?

[Al Kossow]

the only one I've seen is the Zendex ZX-203

On 11/29/16 10:28 AM, Chuck Guzis wrote:
> I don't think that I've seen an 8X30x board with more than an 8X300/305
> and perhaps an 8X330 FDC and various transceivers, memory and other logic.
> 
> How many boards used other specialized members of the product family,
> such as 8X384, 8X310, 8X320, 8X360 or 8X355?
> 
> --Chuck
> 

Re: Other SMS300/8X300/8X305 uses?

[Brent Hilpert]

On 2016-Nov-29, at 10:28 AM, Chuck Guzis wrote:
> I don't think that I've seen an 8X30x board with more than an 8X300/305
> and perhaps an 8X330 FDC and various transceivers, memory and other logic.
> 
> How many boards used other specialized members of the product family,
> such as 8X384, 8X310, 8X320, 8X360 or 8X355?


Admittedly I could go find my copy of the Osborne 70s microprocessors book to 
answer this question but I'm here and the book is somewhere, and I suspect one 
or two people here can answer this without pulling out the book - is the 8X300 
the 'unusual', proto-DSP device discussed in a chapter of the Osborne book?

Re: Other SMS300/8X300/8X305 uses?

[Chuck Guzis]

I don't think that I've seen an 8X30x board with more than an 8X300/305
and perhaps an 8X330 FDC and various transceivers, memory and other logic.

How many boards used other specialized members of the product family,
such as 8X384, 8X310, 8X320, 8X360 or 8X355?

--Chuck

Re: Other SMS300/8X300/8X305 uses?

[Al Kossow]

On 11/29/16 7:42 AM, jim stephens wrote:
>
> Here is an IRMA-II which was suggested by one of AL's auctions.  As Eric 
> says, no roms, so firmware would have to run in
> ram.
> 
> DCA-IRMA2-8-BIT-ISA-BOARD-INTERNAL-CARD-08-VINTAGE-COMPUTER-S167/
> 
> http://www.ebay.com/itm/371801048053


I have one of those, but didn't think it would be very interesting unless the 
driver could be found
that had the code to upload into it.

Re: Other SMS300/8X300/8X305 uses?

[jim stephens]

On 11/28/2016 5:54 PM, Al Kossow wrote:

We have little in the CHM collection coax or twinax related, which I'm trying 
to fix.
One of the reasons I got the Chameleon 32 and the MTX 1174 recently.

On 11/28/16 5:45 PM, Eric Smith wrote:

On Mon, Nov 28, 2016 at 6:43 PM, Al Kossow  wrote:


I bought a rev 1 with proms and a print server from dca on ebay today to
dump


Cool! I've only ever used the 8-bit IRMA II that loaded the firmware into
RAM. At the time I was working for a company with multiple IBM mainframes
and an army of COBOL programmers, though I was in a team of three
programmers using Turbo Pascal on IBM XTs.  I didn't ever use the
mainframes.
Here is an IRMA-II which was suggested by one of AL's auctions.  As Eric 
says, no roms, so firmware would have to run in ram.


DCA-IRMA2-8-BIT-ISA-BOARD-INTERNAL-CARD-08-VINTAGE-COMPUTER-S167/

http://www.ebay.com/itm/371801048053

Re: Other SMS300/8X300/8X305 uses?

[Tony Duell]

On Tue, Nov 29, 2016 at 1:43 AM, Al Kossow  wrote:
> I bought a rev 1 with proms and a print server from dca on ebay today to dump
>
> http://www.ebay.com/itm/192014611480

That is the board I was thinking of.


> http://www.ebay.com/itm/262721065197
>
> On 11/28/16 5:33 PM, Eric Smith wrote:
>> On Sun, Nov 27, 2016 at 8:12 AM, Al Kossow  wrote:
>>
>>> IRMA card
>>>
>>
>> I'd forgotten about that.  The later ones designed the 8X305 out.  It's
>> interesting in that the firmware gets loaded into RAM, rather than running
>> for PROM.
>>
>

My guess is that EPROMs of that time were not fast enough for the 8X305 to run
flat out. Bipolar PROMs were too expensive in the capacity needed. So
they copied
the code into (fast enough) SRAM at startup.

-tony

Re: Other SMS300/8X300/8X305 uses?

[Al Kossow]

We have little in the CHM collection coax or twinax related, which I'm trying 
to fix.
One of the reasons I got the Chameleon 32 and the MTX 1174 recently.

On 11/28/16 5:45 PM, Eric Smith wrote:
> On Mon, Nov 28, 2016 at 6:43 PM, Al Kossow  wrote:
> 
>> I bought a rev 1 with proms and a print server from dca on ebay today to
>> dump
>>
> 
> Cool! I've only ever used the 8-bit IRMA II that loaded the firmware into
> RAM. At the time I was working for a company with multiple IBM mainframes
> and an army of COBOL programmers, though I was in a team of three
> programmers using Turbo Pascal on IBM XTs.  I didn't ever use the
> mainframes.
> 

Re: Other SMS300/8X300/8X305 uses?

[Eric Smith]

On Mon, Nov 28, 2016 at 6:43 PM, Al Kossow  wrote:

> I bought a rev 1 with proms and a print server from dca on ebay today to
> dump
>

Cool! I've only ever used the 8-bit IRMA II that loaded the firmware into
RAM. At the time I was working for a company with multiple IBM mainframes
and an army of COBOL programmers, though I was in a team of three
programmers using Turbo Pascal on IBM XTs.  I didn't ever use the
mainframes.

Re: Other SMS300/8X300/8X305 uses?

[Al Kossow]

I bought a rev 1 with proms and a print server from dca on ebay today to dump

http://www.ebay.com/itm/192014611480
http://www.ebay.com/itm/262721065197

On 11/28/16 5:33 PM, Eric Smith wrote:
> On Sun, Nov 27, 2016 at 8:12 AM, Al Kossow  wrote:
> 
>> IRMA card
>>
> 
> I'd forgotten about that.  The later ones designed the 8X305 out.  It's
> interesting in that the firmware gets loaded into RAM, rather than running
> for PROM.
> 

Re: Other SMS300/8X300/8X305 uses?

[Eric Smith]

On Sun, Nov 27, 2016 at 8:12 AM, Al Kossow  wrote:

> IRMA card
>

I'd forgotten about that.  The later ones designed the 8X305 out.  It's
interesting in that the firmware gets loaded into RAM, rather than running
for PROM.

Re: Other SMS300/8X300/8X305 uses?

[Ken Seefried]

I vaguely recall a T-1 network controller with a 8x300 series
controller in an X.25 node about 30 years ago, but I don't have any
supporting doco.  I think it's pretty clear that uses other than disk
controllers were very rare.

KJ

Re: Other SMS300/8X300/8X305 uses?

[Paul Koning]

No, I never have.  The only PRO related schematics I have matches the 
motherboard portion of the one on Bitsavers.

paul

> On Nov 27, 2016, at 6:00 PM, Al Kossow  wrote:
> 
> have you seen a copy of the schematic anywhere?
> closest that has turned up is the Russian clone of it
> 
> 
> On 11/27/16 1:18 PM, Paul Koning wrote:
> 
>> The DEC Pro hard drive controller.
>> 
>>  paul
>> 
>> 
> 

Re: Other SMS300/8X300/8X305 uses?

[Eric Smith]

On Sun, Nov 27, 2016 at 4:00 PM, Al Kossow  wrote:

> have you seen a copy of the schematic anywhere?
> closest that has turned up is the Russian clone of it
>

The PROMs from the Russian clone are only slightly different than the
Televideo and Radio Shack (8MB) WD1000 ROMs.  There's no reason to think
that they are different than the DEC PROMs, but without a dump of the DEC
PROMs there is uncertainty.

Re: Other SMS300/8X300/8X305 uses?

[Al Kossow]

have you seen a copy of the schematic anywhere?
closest that has turned up is the Russian clone of it


On 11/27/16 1:18 PM, Paul Koning wrote:

> The DEC Pro hard drive controller.
> 
>   paul
> 
> 

Re: Other SMS300/8X300/8X305 uses?

[Paul Koning]

> On Nov 26, 2016, at 11:39 PM, Eric Smith  wrote:
> 
> Now that I have an 8X300 (etc.) disassembler, which I've used to
> disassemble the Western Digital WD1000 and WD1001 firmware, and the Zendex
> ZX-203 firmware, I've become curious as to what other products used the
> SMS300/8X300/8X305.  Does anyone know of any?

The DEC Pro hard drive controller.

paul

Re: Other SMS300/8X300/8X305 uses?

[Al Kossow]

the only thing known is they added an extra head for xt1140 support

On 11/27/16 7:17 AM, Al Kossow wrote:
> oh, and the Xerox 6085 disk controller with tags is high on my list to know 
> the innards,
> especially the difference between the two known revisions
>

Re: Other SMS300/8X300/8X305 uses?

[Al Kossow]

I'm starting to work through my board pile.

The IRMA card is the only 8X305 I've seen lately that isn't in a disc 
controller.

I have a bunch more disk controllers in the queue, mostly multibus, the ADC 
S-100
and some others.

On 11/26/16 8:39 PM, Eric Smith wrote:
> Now that I have an 8X300 (etc.) disassembler, which I've used to
> disassemble the Western Digital WD1000 and WD1001 firmware, and the Zendex
> ZX-203 firmware, I've become curious as to what other products used the
> SMS300/8X300/8X305.  Does anyone know of any?
> 
> In the early to mid-1980s, the 8X300 was a good choice for hard disk
> controllers, because all instructions took 250ns, and a single instruction
> could read an I/O port or RAM location, shift and mask, and write another
> I/O port or RAM location. At the time, no MOS microprocessor was even close
> to that.
> 

Re: Other SMS300/8X300/8X305 uses?

[Al Kossow]

On 11/26/16 11:10 PM, Tony Duell wrote:

> It will take me some time to check, but I seem to remember an ISA card,
> not a disk controller, with one on. Possibly a 3720-type interface (I
> think there
> was a single BNC socket on the bracket, and it's not ethernet).
> 

IRMA card

Re: Other SMS300/8X300/8X305 uses?

[Tony Duell]

On Sun, Nov 27, 2016 at 8:48 AM, jos  wrote:
> On 27.11.2016 08:10, Tony Duell wrote:

>> There's an 8X300 on the hard disk controller (Philips X1215 drive) for the
>> Philips P854 computer. But I suspect that is too obscure even for this
>> list.
>
>
>  Why too obscure ?

How many P854 machines have you come across :-)

>
> The Philips P851 mini also uses a 8X300 / 8X330 combo for floppy &  HD
> controller.

The P851 and P854 use the same bus, essentially (the P854 has memory
management logic in the CPU, so has more address lines) and many
I/O boards will work in both machines. So I thought this was going to be
the same board

> Picture of this controller and dumps of proms are on :
>
> ftp://ftp.dreesen.ch/WD1001

But it isn't -- quite. I wonder if I have a very early version of it, as the
only info i have on it is a photocopy of a hand-drawn block diagram.

My P854 has the normal 2-board set for the floppy controller, I have
an indentical one in the P851. Whether the hard disk controller could
handle floppies, or whether that was added to later versions I don't
know, I do have the same headers at the front edge of the board (the
50 pin one is for the X1215 hard drive which alas I don't have).


>
> If there is a chance to have a good pic of the P851 frontpanel I would
> appriciate it !

I can take one. You do mean P851 and not P854 here, I assume (I have
both).


>
> Too bad the 851 CPU uses ASIC for datapaths & control logic, so I cannot get
> this system up and running since it misses the control one.

The PLANET (PLA NETwork)? The one that handles microcode branches? I only
have one spare (and 4 spare SPALUs (Scratch Pad and Arithmetic Logic Unit) --
the 4-bit bit-slice for the data path) and I really need to keep it as
a spare for
my P851.

-tony

Re: Other SMS300/8X300/8X305 uses?

[jos]

On 27.11.2016 08:10, Tony Duell wrote:

On Sun, Nov 27, 2016 at 4:39 AM, Eric Smith  wrote:

Now that I have an 8X300 (etc.) disassembler, which I've used to
disassemble the Western Digital WD1000 and WD1001 firmware, and the Zendex
ZX-203 firmware, I've become curious as to what other products used the
SMS300/8X300/8X305.  Does anyone know of any?


It will take me some time to check, but I seem to remember an ISA card,
not a disk controller, with one on. Possibly a 3720-type interface (I
think there
was a single BNC socket on the bracket, and it's not ethernet).

There's an 8X300 on the hard disk controller (Philips X1215 drive) for the
Philips P854 computer. But I suspect that is too obscure even for this
list.


 Why too obscure ?

The Philips P851 mini also uses a 8X300 / 8X330 combo for floppy &  HD 
controller.
Picture of this controller and dumps of proms are on :

ftp://ftp.dreesen.ch/WD1001

If there is a chance to have a good pic of the P851 frontpanel I would 
appriciate it !

Too bad the 851 CPU uses ASIC for datapaths & control logic, so I cannot get 
this system up and running since it misses the control one.


Jos

Re: Other SMS300/8X300/8X305 uses?

[Chuck Guzis]

On 11/26/2016 08:39 PM, Eric Smith wrote:
> Now that I have an 8X300 (etc.) disassembler, which I've used to 
> disassemble the Western Digital WD1000 and WD1001 firmware, and the
> Zendex ZX-203 firmware, I've become curious as to what other products
> used the SMS300/8X300/8X305.  Does anyone know of any?

My Durango 900 series machine uses one for the hard disk controller on
what is about the size of an S100 card, but a little smaller.  It fits
in the expansion area just in back of the floppy drives and drives an
ST506-interface drive.

The previous model used a Shugart SA4000 external hard drive and a card
with an Intel 8291 and 8292 to implement a GPIB link.  The controller
itself is full of TTL and matches the footprint of the SA4000.
Microsystems Consultant in Sunnyvale designed it.

There was a floppy controller in the Signetics Bipolar 8X300 line.  It's
in the Signetics Bipolar Microcomputer databook.

--Chuck

Re: Other SMS300/8X300/8X305 uses?

[Tony Duell]

On Sun, Nov 27, 2016 at 4:39 AM, Eric Smith  wrote:
> Now that I have an 8X300 (etc.) disassembler, which I've used to
> disassemble the Western Digital WD1000 and WD1001 firmware, and the Zendex
> ZX-203 firmware, I've become curious as to what other products used the
> SMS300/8X300/8X305.  Does anyone know of any?
>

It will take me some time to check, but I seem to remember an ISA card,
not a disk controller, with one on. Possibly a 3720-type interface (I
think there
was a single BNC socket on the bracket, and it's not ethernet).

There's an 8X300 on the hard disk controller (Philips X1215 drive) for the
Philips P854 computer. But I suspect that is too obscure even for this
list.

-tony

Re: Other SMS300/8X300/8X305 uses?

[Glen Slick]

On Sat, Nov 26, 2016 at 8:39 PM, Eric Smith  wrote:
> Now that I have an 8X300 (etc.) disassembler, which I've used to
> disassemble the Western Digital WD1000 and WD1001 firmware, and the Zendex
> ZX-203 firmware, I've become curious as to what other products used the
> SMS300/8X300/8X305.  Does anyone know of any?
>

The Andromeda WDC11 MFM floppy/hard disk controller uses an 8X305. It
emulates an RX02, and an RK05 or RL01/RL02 or RP02.

I have one. I'm not sure which flavor it is. I've never gotten around
to trying to use it.