Is there any solid info on the Stanford SUN boards? I just know the SUN-1 was based around them, but they aren't the same thing? And apparently cisco used them as well but 'borrowed' someone's RTOS design as the basis for IOS? There was some lawsuit and Stanford got cisco network gear for years for free but they couldn't take stock for some reason? I see more and more of these CP/M SBC's on ebay/online and it seems odd that there is no 'DIY' SUN boards... Or were they not all that open, hence why they kind of disappeared? -----Original Message----- From: Jon Steinhart To: tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org Sent: 4/8/21 7:04 AM Subject: Re: [TUHS] PC Unix Larry McVoy writes: > On Thu, Apr 08, 2021 at 12:18:04AM +0200, Thomas Paulsen wrote: > > >From: John Gilmore <gnu@toad.com> > > >Sun was making 68000-based systems in 1981, before the IBM PC was created. > > > > Sun was founded on February 24, 1982. The Sun-1 was launched in May 1982. > > > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Microsystems > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun-1 > > John may be sort of right, I bet avb was building 68k machines at > Stanford before SUN was founded. Sun stood for Stanford University > Network I believe. > > --lm Larry is correct. I remember visiting a friend of mind, Gary Newman, who was working at Lucasfilm in '81. He showed me a bunch of stuff that they were doing on Stanford University Network boards. Full disclosure, it was Gary and Paul Rubinfeld who ended up at DEC and I believe was the architect for the microVax who told me about the explorer scout post at BTL which is how I met Heinz. Jon
Jason Stevens writes:
> Is there any solid info on the Stanford SUN boards? I just know the SUN-1
> was based around them, but they aren't the same thing? And apparently cisco
> used them as well but 'borrowed' someone's RTOS design as the basis for IOS?
> There was some lawsuit and Stanford got cisco network gear for years for
> free but they couldn't take stock for some reason?
>
> I see more and more of these CP/M SBC's on ebay/online and it seems odd that
> there is no 'DIY' SUN boards... Or were they not all that open, hence why
> they kind of disappeared?
I don't know if Tom Duff was at Lucasfilm at that time but if we was he
would likely know.
Jon
There's a story I've heard about the SUN-1 board that I'd love to have confirmed, etc. Basically, it says that Stanford wrote a letter saying that they didn't make any claims on Andy's work (because he was only an undergraduate, so how important could it be, anyway...). -r
Jason Stevens wrote:
> Is there any solid info on the Stanford SUN boards?
I believe SAIL PDP-10 backup tapes have a large amount of files about
the Stanford SUN project. But due to privacy concerns it would not be
easy to make the information public. Maybe if there were a concerted
effort to contact Vaughan Pratt, Andy Bechtolsheim, et al, and ask their
permission.
> Jason Stevens wrote: >> Is there any solid info on the Stanford SUN boards? July 1979. This seems to hint at future graphical workstations, but the concept has not settled. https://stacks.stanford.edu/file/druid:yj974vz9257/yj974vz9257.pdf March 1980. The SUN workstation seems to be designed. However, it's a multi user machine with up to 16 displays, rather than a single user workstation. https://stacks.stanford.edu/file/druid:gg867qx3134/gg867qx3134.pdf January 1981. Still a work in progress. Number of display is down to two for a "VLSI workstation", or eight for a "terminal cluster". https://stacks.stanford.edu/file/druid:yx961bt1370/yx961bt1370.pdf March 1982. This is probably the final design with a single 1024x800 display. http://i.stanford.edu/pub/cstr/reports/csl/tr/82/229/CSL-TR-82-229.pdf
On 2021-04-09 01:31, Jason Stevens wrote:
> I see more and more of these CP/M SBC's on ebay/online and it seems odd that
> there is no 'DIY' SUN boards... Or were they not all that open, hence why
> they kind of disappeared?
You're comparing a z80 SBC running CP/M? Or are you thinking of 68000 SBCs?
On 09/04/2021 11:12, emanuel stiebler wrote:
> You're comparing a z80 SBC running CP/M? Or are you thinking of 68000 SBCs?
I've never seen a 68k SBC. Have I missed out something along the way?
Is there a community for 68k SBC's?
Kind regards,
Andrew
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 2428 bytes --] Prior to Sun, Andy had a company called VLSI Technology, Inc. which licensed SUN designs to 5-10 companies, including Forward Technology and CoData, IIRC. The SUN IPR effectively belonged to Andy, but I don't know what kind of legal arrangement he had with Stanford. But the design was not generally public, and relied on CAD tools only extant on the Stanford PDP-10. Cisco did start with the SUN-1 processor, though whether they got it from Andy or direct from Stanford is not known to me. When Cisco started (1984), the Sun-1 was long dead already at Sun. After both Sun and Cisco, Stanford got serious about holding on to IPR. On Thu, Apr 8, 2021 at 10:12 PM Jason Stevens < jsteve@superglobalmegacorp.com> wrote: > Is there any solid info on the Stanford SUN boards? I just know the SUN-1 > was based around them, but they aren't the same thing? And apparently > cisco > used them as well but 'borrowed' someone's RTOS design as the basis for > IOS? > There was some lawsuit and Stanford got cisco network gear for years for > free but they couldn't take stock for some reason? > > I see more and more of these CP/M SBC's on ebay/online and it seems odd > that > there is no 'DIY' SUN boards... Or were they not all that open, hence why > they kind of disappeared? > > -----Original Message----- > From: Jon Steinhart > To: tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org > Sent: 4/8/21 7:04 AM > Subject: Re: [TUHS] PC Unix > > Larry McVoy writes: > > On Thu, Apr 08, 2021 at 12:18:04AM +0200, Thomas Paulsen wrote: > > > >From: John Gilmore <gnu@toad.com> > > > >Sun was making 68000-based systems in 1981, before the IBM PC was > created. > > > > > > Sun was founded on February 24, 1982. The Sun-1 was launched in May > 1982. > > > > > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Microsystems > > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun-1 > > > > John may be sort of right, I bet avb was building 68k machines at > > Stanford before SUN was founded. Sun stood for Stanford University > > Network I believe. > > > > --lm > > Larry is correct. I remember visiting a friend of mind, Gary Newman, > who was working at Lucasfilm in '81. He showed me a bunch of stuff > that they were doing on Stanford University Network boards. > > Full disclosure, it was Gary and Paul Rubinfeld who ended up at DEC > and I believe was the architect for the microVax who told me about > the explorer scout post at BTL which is how I met Heinz. > > Jon > -- - Tom [-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 3529 bytes --]
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 2715 bytes --] Fun trivia fact, at least until the mid 90's, the Stanford University Bookstore still had SPARCstations as the machine they sold to students. On Fri, Apr 9, 2021 at 10:10 AM Tom Lyon <pugs@ieee.org> wrote: > Prior to Sun, Andy had a company called VLSI Technology, Inc. which > licensed SUN designs to 5-10 companies, including Forward Technology and > CoData, IIRC. The SUN IPR effectively belonged to Andy, but I don't know > what kind of legal arrangement he had with Stanford. But the design was > not generally public, and relied on CAD tools only extant on the Stanford > PDP-10. Cisco did start with the SUN-1 processor, though whether they got > it from Andy or direct from Stanford is not known to me. When Cisco > started (1984), the Sun-1 was long dead already at Sun. > > After both Sun and Cisco, Stanford got serious about holding on to IPR. > > On Thu, Apr 8, 2021 at 10:12 PM Jason Stevens < > jsteve@superglobalmegacorp.com> wrote: > >> Is there any solid info on the Stanford SUN boards? I just know the SUN-1 >> was based around them, but they aren't the same thing? And apparently >> cisco >> used them as well but 'borrowed' someone's RTOS design as the basis for >> IOS? >> There was some lawsuit and Stanford got cisco network gear for years for >> free but they couldn't take stock for some reason? >> >> I see more and more of these CP/M SBC's on ebay/online and it seems odd >> that >> there is no 'DIY' SUN boards... Or were they not all that open, hence why >> they kind of disappeared? >> >> -----Original Message----- >> From: Jon Steinhart >> To: tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org >> Sent: 4/8/21 7:04 AM >> Subject: Re: [TUHS] PC Unix >> >> Larry McVoy writes: >> > On Thu, Apr 08, 2021 at 12:18:04AM +0200, Thomas Paulsen wrote: >> > > >From: John Gilmore <gnu@toad.com> >> > > >Sun was making 68000-based systems in 1981, before the IBM PC was >> created. >> > > >> > > Sun was founded on February 24, 1982. The Sun-1 was launched in May >> 1982. >> > > >> > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun_Microsystems >> > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sun-1 >> > >> > John may be sort of right, I bet avb was building 68k machines at >> > Stanford before SUN was founded. Sun stood for Stanford University >> > Network I believe. >> > >> > --lm >> >> Larry is correct. I remember visiting a friend of mind, Gary Newman, >> who was working at Lucasfilm in '81. He showed me a bunch of stuff >> that they were doing on Stanford University Network boards. >> >> Full disclosure, it was Gary and Paul Rubinfeld who ended up at DEC >> and I believe was the architect for the microVax who told me about >> the explorer scout post at BTL which is how I met Heinz. >> >> Jon >> > > > -- > - Tom > [-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 4007 bytes --]
> From: Jason Stevens > apparently cisco used them as well but 'borrowed' someone's RTOS design > as the basis for IOS? There was some lawsuit and Stanford got cisco > network gear for years for free but they couldn't take stock for some > reason? I don't know the whole story, but there was some kind of scandal; I vaguely recall stories about 'missing' tapes being 'found' under the machine room raised floor... The base software for the Cisco multi-protocol router was code done by William (Bill) Yeager at Stanford (it handled IP and PUP); I have a vgue memory that his initially ran on PDP-11's, like mine. (I think their use of that code was part of the scandal, but I've forgotten the details.) > From: Tom Lyon > the design ... relied on CAD tools only extant on the Stanford PDP-10. Sounds like SUDS? Noel
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 3356 bytes --] On Fri, Apr 9, 2021 at 2:35 AM Rich Morin <rdm@cfcl.com> wrote: > There's a story I've heard about the SUN-1 board that I'd love to have > confirmed, etc. Basically, it says that Stanford wrote a letter saying > that they didn't make any claims on Andy's work (because he was only an > undergraduate, so how important could it be, anyway...). > Sounds a bit far featured since he did his undergrad at CMU ;-) What Andy designed would (the best I can tell) have started as the 3rd generation processor board for the CMU's distributed front-end (n-th generation of the CMU front end system). The CMU terminal front end was originally a single 11/20 with a lot of ASLI's (asynchronous line interfaces) in them with a parallel connection to the PDP-10s or other larger hosts. The problem was it did not scale and when then Unix machines began to replicate around campus, having a terminal on more than one host was needed, so the distributed front-end was created (by Jim Teter I think). But we started to allow the separated 11/20s to talk to each other. But when the LSI-11s and the Alto's from Xerox appeared a more network-based distributed front-end was built using an LSI-11 chassis. We used an early TCP draft for the protocols and was my introduction to that protocol, as I was part of the crew that switched it to be a Multbus based system and then an Intel 8085 and a Xerox 3M interface, plus an n-port serial board because the LSI-1 based systems were fairly expensive. I've forgotten now, but we might have had a Z80 based processor at some point, as Phil Karn I know had a Z80 C compiler we were using too and the 8085 stuff was assembler if I remember right. IIRC recall somebody at Stanford (Bill Yeager ??maybe??) was doing something similar to the LSI-11 system we were working. How much was Stanford first before CMU I can not say. The 11/20 FE did predate it all, but the two LSI-11s were sort of parallel efforts. I Also thought MIT was doing something ChaosNet around the same time, Noah can fill you in more I suspect. About 2 years later, Andy built a simple 68000 processor [using SUDS - which was what CMU used for Designs in those days] for the multibus version of the DFE, and at some point, somebody (maybe Andy) switched it to an Intel Ethernet board. None of the Multibus or LSI-11 based DFE's had an MMU associated with them. Andy did take took his 68000 CPU design with him to Stanford when he was a grad student and famously redid it adding an MMU and a lot of other features [i.e. CMU board != Stanford Board]. By this time the CMU 'SPICE' proposal had appeared and the idea of the "3M" workstation was being batted around. The Stanford Univerity Network Terminal was created that took his reimagined CPU, the raster display, and other features (I think he was able to get the ethernet on the CPU board by then) -- note it still is using a Multibus-I was the backplane and memory was on a separate board. Stanford licensed the SUN-1 design to a number of firms and while the IP was generally available it was licensed. Cisco made their first router with it, which had a basic architecture that is not unlike the CMU-DFE. Imagin used them for their laser printers. VLSI Technologies would be found (and later renamed SUN) to make them ᐧ [-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 5660 bytes --]
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 742 bytes --] On Fri, Apr 9, 2021 at 10:10 AM Tom Lyon <pugs@ieee.org> wrote: > Prior to Sun, Andy had a company called VLSI Technology, Inc. which > licensed SUN designs to 5-10 companies, including Forward Technology and > CoData, IIRC. The SUN IPR effectively belonged to Andy, but I don't know > what kind of legal arrangement he had with Stanford. But the design was > not generally public, and relied on CAD tools only extant on the Stanford > PDP-10. Cisco did start with the SUN-1 processor, though whether they got > it from Andy or direct from Stanford is not known to me. When Cisco > started (1984), the Sun-1 was long dead already at Sun. > Bits passing in the night -- this very much is what I remember, expereinced. ᐧ [-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 1543 bytes --]
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1079 bytes --] On Fri, Apr 9, 2021 at 10:41 AM Noel Chiappa <jnc@mercury.lcs.mit.edu> wrote: > > The base software for the Cisco multi-protocol router was code done by > William > (Bill) Yeager at Stanford (it handled IP and PUP); I have a vgue memory > that > his initially ran on PDP-11's, like mine. (I think their use of that code > was > part of the scandal, but I've forgotten the details.) > It might have been 11/20's, but I thought he had LSIs at that point (but I can be miss remember). It was much more sophisticated and was really building a router, the CMU DFE was not. We wanted a terminal mux. So were primarily interested in telnet. As I mentioned to Lars in another thread, here is where I learned of SUPDUP for some of the LISPers. But we > > > From: Tom Lyon > > > the design ... relied on CAD tools only extant on the Stanford > PDP-10. > > Sounds like SUDS? > Yes -- SUDS ran on the CMU-10s and 3-River's GDPs (through the FE) -- it was the CAD tool we used at CMU in the mid-late 1980s - the first tool I learned. ᐧ [-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 2125 bytes --]
> On 09/04/2021 11:12, emanuel stiebler wrote: > You're comparing a z80 SBC running CP/M? Or are you thinking of 68000 SBCs? Z80 CP/M machines were still competitive in 1981-1983 (Osborne, Kaypro) > I've never seen a 68k SBC. Have I missed out something along the way? Is there a community for 68k SBC's? Kind regards, Andrew Well, Rob Pike designed one: http://doc.cat-v.org/bell_labs/blit/ I guess the original hacker scene for the 68K was around Hal Hardenberg’s newsletter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DTACK_Grounded The ready-made 68K SBC’s only arrived 1984-1985: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinclair_QL (I think Linus Torvalds owned one) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_ST https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_128K https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiga_1000 All these machines are rather similar at the hardware level - 68K processor, RAM shared between CPU and display. Only the Amiga had a (simple) hardware GPU. What set the SUN-1 apart was its MMU, which none of the above have. What influenced the timing was probably that Motorola made the 68K more affordable by the mid-80’s. Paul
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1911 bytes --] On Fri, Apr 9, 2021 at 11:35 AM Paul Ruizendaal via TUHS < tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org> wrote: > > On 09/04/2021 11:12, emanuel stiebler wrote: > You're comparing a z80 > SBC running CP/M? Or are you thinking of 68000 SBCs? > > Z80 CP/M machines were still competitive in 1981-1983 (Osborne, Kaypro) > > I've never seen a 68k SBC. Have I missed out something along the way? Is > there a community for 68k SBC's? Kind regards, Andrew > There is an active community around DIY 68k SBCs these days. Some representative examples: https://www.eejournal.com/article/wallowing-in-68k-nostalgia/ https://www.ist-schlau.de https://www.bigmessowires.com/category/68katy/ https://github.com/74hc595/68k-nano http://mc68k.blogspot.com/2012_10_01_archive.html There are even a couple of fairly advanced 68030 design floating around: https://www.retrobrewcomputers.org/doku.php?id=boards:sbc:gryphon_68030:start https://www.retrobrewcomputers.org/doku.php?id=boards:ecb:kiss-68030:start (I have a soft spot for 68k.) - Dan C. Well, Rob Pike designed one: http://doc.cat-v.org/bell_labs/blit/ > > I guess the original hacker scene for the 68K was around Hal Hardenberg’s > newsletter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DTACK_Grounded > > The ready-made 68K SBC’s only arrived 1984-1985: > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinclair_QL (I think Linus Torvalds owned > one) > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_ST > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_128K > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiga_1000 > > All these machines are rather similar at the hardware level - 68K > processor, RAM shared between CPU and display. Only the Amiga had a > (simple) hardware GPU. > > What set the SUN-1 apart was its MMU, which none of the above have. > > What influenced the timing was probably that Motorola made the 68K more > affordable by the mid-80’s. > > Paul > > [-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 3881 bytes --]
On 4/9/21 12:22 AM, Lars Brinkhoff wrote:
> Jason Stevens wrote:
>> Is there any solid info on the Stanford SUN boards?
>
> I believe SAIL PDP-10 backup tapes have a large amount of files about
> the Stanford SUN project. But due to privacy concerns it would not be
> easy to make the information public. Maybe if there were a concerted
> effort to contact Vaughan Pratt, Andy Bechtolsheim, et al, and ask their
> permission.
>
All of the schematics and prom dumps of the Stanford version are on bitsavers,
CPU, 3m Ethernet, and frame buffer. The VLSI Systems design sold by Andy before
Sun was founded is the original SUN design. The 3meg ethernet was used at PARC
for the Dicentra router, I don't know if any third parties licensed the frame
buffer, maybe Lucasfilm.
Stanford extended the original design for campus routers with more memory. There was
an example of that board in a display case in the Gates building before the
remodeling started.
If you were going after permission, it would also be good to get SAIL's version
of SUDS and if they have it the LLNL S1 designs and software.
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 3673 bytes --] When Digital Systems Research Lab started in 1984 after the implosion of PARC CSL, the first machine we built was a 68000 (68010?) version of the Firefly multiprocessor. We were able to score some MicroVAX II chips soon enough that we redesigned using those, which was, ahem, more politically astute at Digital. Only a few 68K versions were built. The Firefly supported a Unix/Ultrix system call interface but otherwise used unrelated software. (Funny story about close(2). The initial version raised a Modula-2 signal when you tried to close an already closed file, which was very slow. The OS folks, unused to Unix, had no idea that was something you do all the time.) Regarding the SUN-1 design, I had heard a rumor that it was designed using TTL “typical” propagation delays rather than worst case, and as a result was fairly flakey. This caused me to not join sun <very> early since Eric Schmidt had the office next to me. One of my many life mistakes. -Larry > On 2021, Apr 9, at 1:01 PM, Dan Cross <crossd@gmail.com> wrote: > > On Fri, Apr 9, 2021 at 11:35 AM Paul Ruizendaal via TUHS <tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org <mailto:tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org>> wrote: > > On 09/04/2021 11:12, emanuel stiebler wrote: > You're comparing a z80 SBC running CP/M? Or are you thinking of 68000 SBCs? > > Z80 CP/M machines were still competitive in 1981-1983 (Osborne, Kaypro) > > > I've never seen a 68k SBC. Have I missed out something along the way? Is there a community for 68k SBC's? Kind regards, Andrew > > There is an active community around DIY 68k SBCs these days. Some representative examples: > > https://www.eejournal.com/article/wallowing-in-68k-nostalgia/ <https://www.eejournal.com/article/wallowing-in-68k-nostalgia/> > https://www.ist-schlau.de <https://www.ist-schlau.de/> > https://www.bigmessowires.com/category/68katy/ <https://www.bigmessowires.com/category/68katy/> > https://github.com/74hc595/68k-nano <https://github.com/74hc595/68k-nano> > http://mc68k.blogspot.com/2012_10_01_archive.html <http://mc68k.blogspot.com/2012_10_01_archive.html> > > There are even a couple of fairly advanced 68030 design floating around: > > https://www.retrobrewcomputers.org/doku.php?id=boards:sbc:gryphon_68030:start <https://www.retrobrewcomputers.org/doku.php?id=boards:sbc:gryphon_68030:start> > https://www.retrobrewcomputers.org/doku.php?id=boards:ecb:kiss-68030:start <https://www.retrobrewcomputers.org/doku.php?id=boards:ecb:kiss-68030:start> > > (I have a soft spot for 68k.) > > - Dan C. > > Well, Rob Pike designed one: http://doc.cat-v.org/bell_labs/blit/ <http://doc.cat-v.org/bell_labs/blit/> > > I guess the original hacker scene for the 68K was around Hal Hardenberg’s newsletter: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DTACK_Grounded <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DTACK_Grounded> > > The ready-made 68K SBC’s only arrived 1984-1985: > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinclair_QL <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinclair_QL> (I think Linus Torvalds owned one) > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_ST <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_ST> > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_128K <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macintosh_128K> > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiga_1000 <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiga_1000> > > All these machines are rather similar at the hardware level - 68K processor, RAM shared between CPU and display. Only the Amiga had a (simple) hardware GPU. > > What set the SUN-1 apart was its MMU, which none of the above have. > > What influenced the timing was probably that Motorola made the 68K more affordable by the mid-80’s. > > Paul > [-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 6312 bytes --]
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 2986 bytes --] [I see that Dan C. has already covered some of this.] On Fri, Apr 9, 2021, at 6:13 AM, U'll Be King of the Stars wrote: > I've never seen a 68k SBC. Have I missed out something along the way? > Is there a community for 68k SBC's? There is a community of folks making 'retro-brew' computers, which are new home-brew board designs based around older CPUs. While Z80/Z180 based designs are the most popular, there are a smattering of 68K retro-brews. The main places for discussions are https://groups.google.com/g/retro-comp and https://www.retrobrewcomputers.org/forum/index.php. The availability of very cheap PCBs from China (2 layers, 10cm x 10cm, $3 per board shipped, shipped in a week) and open source PCB design software like KiCad seems to have increase the amount of this kind of activity over the past few years. Hardware-wise, most of these are 68000's with some ROM (around 512K is typical), some SRAM (512K to 1 MB), a UART of some kind, and perhaps some storage either SDCard via SPI or CompactFlash via an IDE port. I think only the Kiwi68K supports any type of video, using a vintage TI video chip. Here are a few links to 68K designs: ECB Mini-68K CPU Card (68008 based and not a single board) - https://www.retrobrewcomputers.org/doku.php?id=boards:ecb:mini-68k:start ECB KISS-68030: (68030 based and not a single board) - https://www.retrobrewcomputers.org/doku.php?id=boards:ecb:kiss-68030:start The Rosco M68K: https://rosco-m68k.com The Tobster 030 - https://www.retrobrewcomputers.org/doku.php?id=builderpages:tobster:t030 Jeff Tranter's 68000 - http://jefftranter.blogspot.com/2017/01/building-68000-single-board-computer_14.html Plasmo's Tiny68K - https://www.retrobrewcomputers.org/doku.php?id=boards:sbc:tiny68k:tiny68k_rev2 Plasmo's CB030 - https://www.retrobrewcomputers.org/doku.php?id=builderpages:plasmo:cb030 Kiwi68K - https://www.ist-schlau.de All these designs are open source. The Rosco one is available as a kit on Tindie.com. (I have no affiliation.) I've got my own 68008 based board that I'm working on, but haven't published anything about it. -- I think the main reason the 68K is not more popular in the retro-brew/DIY community is lack of software. On the Z80 side, once you've built a board there is a ton of CP/M-80 software available to run. For 68K boards, the usual software progression is a ROM monitor, then maybe porting of Lee Davison's EhBASIC, then CP/M-68K. CP/M-68K has very little software available, and what is available are microEmacs and a few compilers (K&R C, BASIC and Pascal). That's about it for 68Ks without an MMU. A couple of the boards above that have 68030 do have Linux running on them. There's also the perception that Z80s have an easier hardware interface, but I'm not convinced that's true. -- Rob ECB Mini-68k CPU Card I should disclaim that some of the things I'm about to link to are kits sold on Tindie.com. I have no affiliation with the creators, other than being a fan of their work. [-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 5338 bytes --]
Lawrence Stewart writes:
> Regarding the SUN-1 design, I had heard a rumor that it was designed using TTL
> “typical” propagation delays rather than worst case, and as a result was fairly
> flakey.
It's astonishing how common a practice that was back then.
Al Kossow wrote:
> If you were going after permission, it would also be good to get
> SAIL's version of SUDS and if they have it the LLNL S1 designs and
> software.
Yes, those would also be worth persuing. Looks like a big chunk of S1
design files are in there. But the LLNL WAITS system split off from the
mothership at some point, so much of the S1 work may not have been
present on the SAIL PDP-10.
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 3959 bytes --] I’ve done a fair amount of research on Sun 1’s since I have one ( and it has one of the original 68k motherboards with the original proms ). It’s on my list to create a Sun 1 registry along the lines of the Apple 1 registry. (https://www.apple1registry.com/) Right now, I can positively identify 24 machines that still exist. Odd serial numbering makes it very hard to know exactly how many they made. Cisco was sued by Stanford over the Sun 1. From what I read, they made off with some Stanford property ( SW and HW ). Wikipedia mentions this ( and I have some supporting documents as well ). They ended up licensing from Stanford as part of the settlement. From what I’ve gathered VLSI licensed the design from Stanford not Andy directly. However the only produced a few machines and Andy wasn’t all that happy with that. That was one of the impetus is to getting sun formed and licensing the same design. I also believe another company ( or 2 )licensed the design but either didn’t produce any or very very few machines. You can tell a difference between VLSI boards and the Sun Microsystems boards because the SUN is all capitalized on the VLSI boards ( and is Sun on the others ). At least on the few I’ve seen pictures of. The design was also licensed to SGI — I’ve seen a prototype SGI board that’s the same thing with a larger PCB to allow some extensions. And the original CPU boards didn’t have an MMU. They could only run Sun OS up to 0.9, I believe was the version. When Bill Joy got there, again from what I’ve gathered, he wanted to bring more of the BSD code over and they had to change the system board. This is why you see the Sun 1/150 model number ( as an upgrade to the original Sun 1/100 designation ). The rack mounted Sun 1/120 was changed to the 1/170. The same upgraded CPU board was used in the Sun 2/120 at least initially. The original Sun OS wasn’t BSD based. It was a V32 variant I believe. And the original CPU boards were returned to Sun, I believe as part of the upgrade from the 1/100 to the 1/150. ( Given people had just paid $10,000 for a machine having to replace the entire machine would’ve been bad from a customer perspective). Sun did board upgrade trade ups after this ( I worked at a company and we purchased an upgrade to upgrade a Sun 3/140 to a Sun 3/110 — the upgrade consisted of a CPU board swap and a different badge for the box ) Sun then, from when I can tell, sold the original CPU boards to a German company that was producing a V32 system. They changed out the PROMs but you can see the Sun logo and part numbers on the boards I could go on and on about this topic 🙂 A Sun 1 was a “bucket list” machine for me - and I am still happy that some friends were willing to take a 17 hour road trip from Atlanta to Minnesota to pick mine up. 🙂 After unparking the drive heads it booted up, first try ( I was only willing to try that without a bunch of testing work because I have some spare power supplies and a couple plastic tubs of multi bus boards that came with it 🙂) Earl Sent from my iPhone > On Apr 9, 2021, at 11:13 AM, Clem Cole <clemc@ccc.com> wrote: > > > > >> On Fri, Apr 9, 2021 at 10:10 AM Tom Lyon <pugs@ieee.org> wrote: >> Prior to Sun, Andy had a company called VLSI Technology, Inc. which licensed SUN designs to 5-10 companies, including Forward Technology and CoData, IIRC. The SUN IPR effectively belonged to Andy, but I don't know what kind of legal arrangement he had with Stanford. But the design was not generally public, and relied on CAD tools only extant on the Stanford PDP-10. Cisco did start with the SUN-1 processor, though whether they got it from Andy or direct from Stanford is not known to me. When Cisco started (1984), the Sun-1 was long dead already at Sun. > Bits passing in the night -- this very much is what I remember, expereinced. > ᐧ [-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 5476 bytes --]
On 4/9/21 1:02 PM, Earl Baugh wrote:
> And the original CPU boards didn’t have an MMU.
wrong
They didn't have a 68010 capable of recovering from page faults
The original unix shipped on Sun 1's was a Unisoft port. The same
one sold by several other companies that sold the original Sun CPU
design.l
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 4008 bytes --] When I was at SUN, our group’s print server was a SUN-1... Joe McGuckin ViaNet Communications joe@via.net 650-207-0372 cell 650-213-1302 office 650-969-2124 fax > On Apr 9, 2021, at 10:22 AM, Rob Gowin <robg@fastmail.com> wrote: > > [I see that Dan C. has already covered some of this.] > > On Fri, Apr 9, 2021, at 6:13 AM, U'll Be King of the Stars wrote: >> I've never seen a 68k SBC. Have I missed out something along the way? >> Is there a community for 68k SBC's? > > There is a community of folks making 'retro-brew' computers, which are new home-brew board designs based around older CPUs. While Z80/Z180 based designs are the most popular, there are a smattering of 68K retro-brews. The main places for discussions are https://groups.google.com/g/retro-comp <https://groups.google.com/g/retro-comp> and https://www.retrobrewcomputers.org/forum/index.php <https://www.retrobrewcomputers.org/forum/index.php>. The availability of very cheap PCBs from China (2 layers, 10cm x 10cm, $3 per board shipped, shipped in a week) and open source PCB design software like KiCad seems to have increase the amount of this kind of activity over the past few years. > > Hardware-wise, most of these are 68000's with some ROM (around 512K is typical), some SRAM (512K to 1 MB), a UART of some kind, and perhaps some storage either SDCard via SPI or CompactFlash via an IDE port. I think only the Kiwi68K supports any type of video, using a vintage TI video chip. > > Here are a few links to 68K designs: > > ECB Mini-68K CPU Card (68008 based and not a single board) - https://www.retrobrewcomputers.org/doku.php?id=boards:ecb:mini-68k:start <https://www.retrobrewcomputers.org/doku.php?id=boards:ecb:mini-68k:start> > ECB KISS-68030: (68030 based and not a single board) - https://www.retrobrewcomputers.org/doku.php?id=boards:ecb:kiss-68030:start <https://www.retrobrewcomputers.org/doku.php?id=boards:ecb:kiss-68030:start> > The Rosco M68K: https://rosco-m68k.com <https://rosco-m68k.com/> > The Tobster 030 - https://www.retrobrewcomputers.org/doku.php?id=builderpages:tobster:t030 <https://www.retrobrewcomputers.org/doku.php?id=builderpages:tobster:t030> > Jeff Tranter's 68000 - http://jefftranter.blogspot.com/2017/01/building-68000-single-board-computer_14.html <http://jefftranter.blogspot.com/2017/01/building-68000-single-board-computer_14.html> > Plasmo's Tiny68K - https://www.retrobrewcomputers.org/doku.php?id=boards:sbc:tiny68k:tiny68k_rev2 <https://www.retrobrewcomputers.org/doku.php?id=boards:sbc:tiny68k:tiny68k_rev2> > Plasmo's CB030 - https://www.retrobrewcomputers.org/doku.php?id=builderpages:plasmo:cb030 <https://www.retrobrewcomputers.org/doku.php?id=builderpages:plasmo:cb030> > Kiwi68K - https://www.ist-schlau.de <https://www.ist-schlau.de/> > > All these designs are open source. The Rosco one is available as a kit on Tindie.com <http://tindie.com/>. (I have no affiliation.) I've got my own 68008 based board that I'm working on, but haven't published anything about it. > > -- > > I think the main reason the 68K is not more popular in the retro-brew/DIY community is lack of software. On the Z80 side, once you've built a board there is a ton of CP/M-80 software available to run. For 68K boards, the usual software progression is a ROM monitor, then maybe porting of Lee Davison's EhBASIC, then CP/M-68K. CP/M-68K has very little software available, and what is available are microEmacs and a few compilers (K&R C, BASIC and Pascal). That's about it for 68Ks without an MMU. A couple of the boards above that have 68030 do have Linux running on them. There's also the perception that Z80s have an easier hardware interface, but I'm not convinced that's true. > > -- Rob > > > > > ECB Mini-68k CPU Card > > I should disclaim that some of the things I'm about to link to are kits sold on Tindie.com <http://tindie.com/>. I have no affiliation with the creators, other than being a fan of their work. [-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 18287 bytes --]
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 688 bytes --] On Fri, Apr 9, 2021 at 4:08 PM Al Kossow <aek@bitsavers.org> wrote: > On 4/9/21 1:02 PM, Earl Baugh wrote: > > > And the original CPU boards didn’t have an MMU. > > wrong > > They didn't have a 68010 capable of recovering from page faults > > The original unix shipped on Sun 1's was a Unisoft port. The same > one sold by several other companies that sold the original Sun CPU > design.l > Right on both counts - his base/limit MMU even had a small PID/Context register which was pretty slick at the time. The MMU I created with Roger Bates for the Tektronix Magonia was not that smart and when I first saw it I did a face plant -- why didn't I think of that. ᐧ [-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 1490 bytes --]
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain, Size: 1553 bytes --] On Fri, Apr 9, 2021 at 12:33 PM Jon Steinhart <jon@fourwinds.com> wrote: > Lawrence Stewart writes: > > Regarding the SUN-1 design, I had heard a rumor that it was designed > using TTL > > “typical” propagation delays rather than worst case, and as a result was > fairly > > flakey. > > It's astonishing how common a practice that was back then. > Even into the 2000s. I had a 6-month long war with one of the hardware guys for a time collection ISA card he did. It worked great, the driver worked great. Life was good. We shipped product. 5 years later, the customer comes back and wants a dozen more. So, we got new parts and 4 of the 6 new cards were flakey, 2 were good. Fingers pointed at the device driver, etc. Long months of intermittent troubleshooting continued for 5 months. During this time I build an ISA bus trace card, showed the traces were good and the flakiness was the result of bad data coming back from the card. At which point they brought in a different hardware guy to look at things. He discovered the first hardware guy had built an async circuit with typical delay patterns. One of the parts we used was rated at 200ns, but parts from the flakey board worked at 50ns. Turns out the manufacturer substituted a faster part, so the 'typical' delay propagation worked for this async circuit, but the faster response time would corrupt data from time to time. The design was tweaked to be synchronous with a latch, and the unmodified driver worked perfectly then... Fun times that... Warner [-- Attachment #2: Type: text/html, Size: 1930 bytes --]
Thanks for clarifying that!! I should have said “I believe it might not have had. I wasn’t quite sure what the problem was which caused the issue. I had in my notes that something would prevent implementing virtual memory ( and that the person thought it might be a missing MMU ). I should have relayed that more accurately. Always appreciate clarifying and better info.
I’ll also add the Ubisoft note. I have some copies of a few of the earlier releases but I don’t think the tar files have a company name on them. I’ve not unpacked them yet.
Does anyone have any source that has a better “how many Sun 1’s were made” number? I have a few sources that say “maybe 300” and “maybe 400” and “maybe 600”. Obviously that’s not very exact. :-) The serial numbers bounce around ( from the units I’ve identified ) and it’s not clear they started at 1... some info says there was some arbitrary number that they started at. And that chunks of numbers might have been skipped. I’ve just not been able to find a more definitive or more trustworthy source.
( though I haven’t seen if old stock info filings might have more info - but I’m thinking those would have been after the fact, time wise )
Earl
Sent from my iPhone
> On Apr 9, 2021, at 4:08 PM, Al Kossow <aek@bitsavers.org> wrote:
>
> On 4/9/21 1:02 PM, Earl Baugh wrote:
>
>> And the original CPU boards didn’t have an MMU.
>
> wrong
>
> They didn't have a 68010 capable of recovering from page faults
>
> The original unix shipped on Sun 1's was a Unisoft port. The same
> one sold by several other companies that sold the original Sun CPU
> design.l
>
On Fri, 9 Apr 2021, U'll Be King of the Stars wrote: > I've never seen a 68k SBC. Have I missed out something along the way? > Is there a community for 68k SBC's? May I introduce you to the Aussie-designed Applix 1616? Not a strict SBC (the disk controller was a separate card): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Applix_1616 There's sort of a mailing list for its users, but it grew to become a tech-head list with an amazing amount of expertise: https://www.object-craft.com.au/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/applix-l Disclaimer: I'm a regular poster, and I personally know the list owner (and a lot of the contributors). -- Dave
I'd totally subscribe to your newsletter :P that's cool, there is a tape dump of the old stuff on bitsavers... the UniSoft port I think was the original stuff before Bill showed up? http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/bits/Sun/UniSoft_1.3/ along with some ROM images http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/bits/Sun/sun1/ but more pictures and whatnot are always interesting! -----Original Message----- From: Earl Baugh To: Clem Cole Cc: tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org Sent: 4/10/21 4:02 AM Subject: Re: [TUHS] SUN (Stanford University Network) was PC Unix I’ve done a fair amount of research on Sun 1’s since I have one ( and it has one of the original 68k motherboards with the original proms ). It’s on my list to create a Sun 1 registry along the lines of the Apple 1 registry. ( https://www.apple1registry.com/ <https://www.apple1registry.com/> ) Right now, I can positively identify 24 machines that still exist. Odd serial numbering makes it very hard to know exactly how many they made. Cisco was sued by Stanford over the Sun 1. From what I read, they made off with some Stanford property ( SW and HW ). Wikipedia mentions this ( and I have some supporting documents as well ). They ended up licensing from Stanford as part of the settlement. From what I’ve gathered VLSI licensed the design from Stanford not Andy directly. However the only produced a few machines and Andy wasn’t all that happy with that. That was one of the impetus is to getting sun formed and licensing the same design. I also believe another company ( or 2 )licensed the design but either didn’t produce any or very very few machines. You can tell a difference between VLSI boards and the Sun Microsystems boards because the SUN is all capitalized on the VLSI boards ( and is Sun on the others ). At least on the few I’ve seen pictures of. The design was also licensed to SGI — I’ve seen a prototype SGI board that’s the same thing with a larger PCB to allow some extensions. And the original CPU boards didn’t have an MMU. They could only run Sun OS up to 0.9, I believe was the version. When Bill Joy got there, again from what I’ve gathered, he wanted to bring more of the BSD code over and they had to change the system board. This is why you see the Sun 1/150 model number ( as an upgrade to the original Sun 1/100 designation ). The rack mounted Sun 1/120 was changed to the 1/170. The same upgraded CPU board was used in the Sun 2/120 at least initially. The original Sun OS wasn’t BSD based. It was a V32 variant I believe. And the original CPU boards were returned to Sun, I believe as part of the upgrade from the 1/100 to the 1/150. ( Given people had just paid $10,000 for a machine having to replace the entire machine would’ve been bad from a customer perspective). Sun did board upgrade trade ups after this ( I worked at a company and we purchased an upgrade to upgrade a Sun 3/140 to a Sun 3/110 — the upgrade consisted of a CPU board swap and a different badge for the box ) Sun then, from when I can tell, sold the original CPU boards to a German company that was producing a V32 system. They changed out the PROMs but you can see the Sun logo and part numbers on the boards I could go on and on about this topic ? A Sun 1 was a “bucket list” machine for me - and I am still happy that some friends were willing to take a 17 hour road trip from Atlanta to Minnesota to pick mine up. ? After unparking the drive heads it booted up, first try ( I was only willing to try that without a bunch of testing work because I have some spare power supplies and a couple plastic tubs of multi bus boards that came with it ?) Earl Sent from my iPhone On Apr 9, 2021, at 11:13 AM, Clem Cole <clemc@ccc.com> wrote: ? On Fri, Apr 9, 2021 at 10:10 AM Tom Lyon < pugs@ieee.org <mailto:pugs@ieee.org> > wrote: Prior to Sun, Andy had a company called VLSI Technology, Inc. which licensed SUN designs to 5-10 companies, including Forward Technology and CoData, IIRC. The SUN IPR effectively belonged to Andy, but I don't know what kind of legal arrangement he had with Stanford. But the design was not generally public, and relied on CAD tools only extant on the Stanford PDP-10. Cisco did start with the SUN-1 processor, though whether they got it from Andy or direct from Stanford is not known to me. When Cisco started (1984), the Sun-1 was long dead already at Sun. Bits passing in the night -- this very much is what I remember, expereinced. <https://mailfoogae.appspot.com/t?sender=aY2xlbWNAY2NjLmNvbQ%3D%3D&type= zerocontent&guid=57eccb88-2f68-40ed-9f5a-ce8913f2b4cc> ?
On Fri, 9 Apr 2021, Paul Ruizendaal via TUHS wrote:
> Z80 CP/M machines were still competitive in 1981-1983 (Osborne, Kaypro)
And the Aussie Microbee... Wonderful machine, and easily hacked upon.
For example, you could expand the memory by soldering several chips on top
of each other and addressing the CS* line via bank-switching.
-- Dave
> On 10 Apr 2021, at 13:17, Dave Horsfall <dave@horsfall.org> wrote:
>
> On Fri, 9 Apr 2021, Paul Ruizendaal via TUHS wrote:
>
>> Z80 CP/M machines were still competitive in 1981-1983 (Osborne, Kaypro)
>
> And the Aussie Microbee... Wonderful machine, and easily hacked upon.
>
> For example, you could expand the memory by soldering several chips on top of each other and addressing the CS* line via bank-switching.
6116 static RAM meant no mucking about with DRAM refresh either.
And the single switch upgrade from 2MHz to 4MHz.
Happy days.
But I never tried to get a Unix on it. UZI or Fuzix might work?
d
On Sat, 10 Apr 2021, David Arnold wrote: [ Microbee ] > 6116 static RAM meant no mucking about with DRAM refresh either. Yep, that helped a lot; slower, but who cared? My memory is fading now, but I recall that the Z-80 had a "refresh" pin to tell any attached dynamic RAM to refresh itself. The Z-80 was my favourite chip :-) > Happy days. > > But I never tried to get a Unix on it. UZI or Fuzix might work? I toyed with the idea of Minix or LSX, but it would have to be stripped back and I didn't think that the Z-80 was up to it, even though I had the 128KB bank-switched model. With the Hi-Tech C compiler I did get a number of simple Unix programs to run, and even found a copy of CP/M UUCP (which was overlaid to to hell and back). I did have a copy of Concurrent CP/M, but never tried it. -- Dave
On Apr 13, 2021, at 2:57 PM, Dave Horsfall <dave@horsfall.org> wrote:
>
>> Happy days.
>>
>> But I never tried to get a Unix on it. UZI or Fuzix might work?
>
> I toyed with the idea of Minix or LSX, but it would have to be stripped back and I didn't think that the Z-80 was up to it, even though I had the 128KB bank-switched model. With the Hi-Tech C compiler I did get a number of simple Unix programs to run, and even found a copy of CP/M UUCP (which was overlaid to to hell and back).
Cromemco Inc sold Cromix, a "unix like os" for their Z80 based System
Three in 1979. It had many of the unix commands but some had longer
names and no UUCP. Written from scratch AFAIK. I believe you can still
find a copy online and run it under a Z80 emulator.
On Sat, 10 Apr 2021, Dave Horsfall wrote:
> On Fri, 9 Apr 2021, Paul Ruizendaal via TUHS wrote:
>
>> Z80 CP/M machines were still competitive in 1981-1983 (Osborne, Kaypro)
>
> And the Aussie Microbee... Wonderful machine, and easily hacked upon.
>
> For example, you could expand the memory by soldering several chips on top of
> each other and addressing the CS* line via bank-switching.
That worked on the old Radio Shack (Tandy) Color Computer 2 as well.
Until this moment I didn't know it had been demonstrated on any other
architecture.
The Operating System OS-9[1] Level One would detect this and use the
bank-switched memory if it was available. Presumably it kept identical
copies of itself in each bank as the entire address space switched.
Microware OS-9 was *nix-like in look and feel although it was very
different internally I think. OS-9 still exists today.
I started with OS-9 and so found Unix a comfortable environment when I
transitioned over.
[1] Which should not be confused with any operating system running on a
Mac. That's another story.
Rob
Robert Brockway <robert@timetraveller.org> writes: > On Sat, 10 Apr 2021, Dave Horsfall wrote: > >> On Fri, 9 Apr 2021, Paul Ruizendaal via TUHS wrote: >> >>> Z80 CP/M machines were still competitive in 1981-1983 (Osborne, Kaypro) >> >> And the Aussie Microbee... Wonderful machine, and easily hacked upon. >> >> For example, you could expand the memory by soldering several chips on top of >> each other and addressing the CS* line via bank-switching. > > That worked on the old Radio Shack (Tandy) Color Computer 2 as well. > Until this moment I didn't know it had been demonstrated on any other > architecture. > > The Operating System OS-9[1] Level One would detect this and use the > bank-switched memory if it was available. Presumably it kept identical > copies of itself in each bank as the entire address space switched. > > Microware OS-9 was *nix-like in look and feel although it was very > different internally I think. OS-9 still exists today. > > I started with OS-9 and so found Unix a comfortable environment when I > transitioned over. > > [1] Which should not be confused with any operating system running on a > Mac. That's another story. > > Rob I did a lot with OS-9 too, both Level One on the Color Computer 2 and Level Two on the Color Computer 3. The CC3 had a very primitive memory manager, no faulting, but would allow 8k chunks from up to a 512k pool of memory to be mapped into the 64k address space of the 6809. There was a C compiler, probably K&R based or a bit before for OS-9. I ported a number of the BSD utilities. I also worked on a implementation of UUCP and ran a UUCP node and proper domain for email using UUNET as the provider. I received email and a bit of Usenet. I wrote a clone of rn to read Usenet on the CC3 with OS-9 Level Two. The block diagram for 6809 OS-9 was very simular to V[small number] Unix, with some notable differences. OS-9 is a microkernel probably being the biggest thing and 6809 OS-9 is all written in assembly. There was a login program that you could attach to a serial port and actually login with a username and password and such. Lots of fun and somewhat Unix like in a lot of ways. There was also a 68000 version of OS-9 Level One that I saw once. I understand that it may have been mechanically translated from the 6809 version. It ran pretty much exactly in the same way. -- Brad Spencer - brad@anduin.eldar.org - KC8VKS - http://anduin.eldar.org