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* Re: [TUHS] SUN (Stanford University Network) was PC Unix
@ 2021-04-09  5:31 Jason Stevens
  2021-04-09  6:13 ` Jon Steinhart
                   ` (3 more replies)
  0 siblings, 4 replies; 34+ messages in thread
From: Jason Stevens @ 2021-04-09  5:31 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: 'Jon Steinhart ', 'tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org '

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

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 34+ messages in thread

* Re: [TUHS] SUN (Stanford University Network) was PC Unix
  2021-04-09  5:31 [TUHS] SUN (Stanford University Network) was PC Unix Jason Stevens
@ 2021-04-09  6:13 ` Jon Steinhart
  2021-04-09  6:34   ` Rich Morin
  2021-04-09  7:22 ` Lars Brinkhoff
                   ` (2 subsequent siblings)
  3 siblings, 1 reply; 34+ messages in thread
From: Jon Steinhart @ 2021-04-09  6:13 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: 'tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org '

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

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 34+ messages in thread

* Re: [TUHS] SUN (Stanford University Network) was PC Unix
  2021-04-09  6:13 ` Jon Steinhart
@ 2021-04-09  6:34   ` Rich Morin
  2021-04-09 15:08     ` Clem Cole
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 34+ messages in thread
From: Rich Morin @ 2021-04-09  6:34 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: tuhs

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


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 34+ messages in thread

* Re: [TUHS] SUN (Stanford University Network) was PC Unix
  2021-04-09  5:31 [TUHS] SUN (Stanford University Network) was PC Unix Jason Stevens
  2021-04-09  6:13 ` Jon Steinhart
@ 2021-04-09  7:22 ` Lars Brinkhoff
  2021-04-09  9:29   ` Lars Brinkhoff
  2021-04-09 17:02   ` Al Kossow
  2021-04-09 10:12 ` emanuel stiebler
  2021-04-09 14:08 ` Tom Lyon
  3 siblings, 2 replies; 34+ messages in thread
From: Lars Brinkhoff @ 2021-04-09  7:22 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Jason Stevens; +Cc: 'tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org '

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.

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 34+ messages in thread

* Re: [TUHS] SUN (Stanford University Network) was PC Unix
  2021-04-09  7:22 ` Lars Brinkhoff
@ 2021-04-09  9:29   ` Lars Brinkhoff
  2021-04-09 17:02   ` Al Kossow
  1 sibling, 0 replies; 34+ messages in thread
From: Lars Brinkhoff @ 2021-04-09  9:29 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Jason Stevens; +Cc: 'tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org '

> 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

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 34+ messages in thread

* Re: [TUHS] SUN (Stanford University Network) was PC Unix
  2021-04-09  5:31 [TUHS] SUN (Stanford University Network) was PC Unix Jason Stevens
  2021-04-09  6:13 ` Jon Steinhart
  2021-04-09  7:22 ` Lars Brinkhoff
@ 2021-04-09 10:12 ` emanuel stiebler
  2021-04-09 11:13   ` U'll Be King of the Stars
  2021-04-09 14:08 ` Tom Lyon
  3 siblings, 1 reply; 34+ messages in thread
From: emanuel stiebler @ 2021-04-09 10:12 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Jason Stevens, 'Jon Steinhart ', 'tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org '

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?

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 34+ messages in thread

* Re: [TUHS] SUN (Stanford University Network) was PC Unix
  2021-04-09 10:12 ` emanuel stiebler
@ 2021-04-09 11:13   ` U'll Be King of the Stars
  2021-04-09 17:22     ` Rob Gowin
  2021-04-10  2:22     ` Dave Horsfall
  0 siblings, 2 replies; 34+ messages in thread
From: U'll Be King of the Stars @ 2021-04-09 11:13 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: emanuel stiebler, Jason Stevens, 'Jon Steinhart ',
	'tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org '

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

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 34+ messages in thread

* Re: [TUHS] SUN (Stanford University Network) was PC Unix
  2021-04-09  5:31 [TUHS] SUN (Stanford University Network) was PC Unix Jason Stevens
                   ` (2 preceding siblings ...)
  2021-04-09 10:12 ` emanuel stiebler
@ 2021-04-09 14:08 ` Tom Lyon
  2021-04-09 14:23   ` Jim Geist
  2021-04-09 15:11   ` Clem Cole
  3 siblings, 2 replies; 34+ messages in thread
From: Tom Lyon @ 2021-04-09 14:08 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Jason Stevens; +Cc: tuhs

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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

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^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 34+ messages in thread

* Re: [TUHS] SUN (Stanford University Network) was PC Unix
  2021-04-09 14:08 ` Tom Lyon
@ 2021-04-09 14:23   ` Jim Geist
  2021-04-09 15:11   ` Clem Cole
  1 sibling, 0 replies; 34+ messages in thread
From: Jim Geist @ 2021-04-09 14:23 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Tom Lyon; +Cc: tuhs

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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
>

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^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 34+ messages in thread

* Re: [TUHS] SUN (Stanford University Network) was PC Unix
  2021-04-09  6:34   ` Rich Morin
@ 2021-04-09 15:08     ` Clem Cole
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 34+ messages in thread
From: Clem Cole @ 2021-04-09 15:08 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Rich Morin; +Cc: tuhs

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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

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^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 34+ messages in thread

* Re: [TUHS] SUN (Stanford University Network) was PC Unix
  2021-04-09 14:08 ` Tom Lyon
  2021-04-09 14:23   ` Jim Geist
@ 2021-04-09 15:11   ` Clem Cole
  2021-04-09 20:02     ` Earl Baugh
  1 sibling, 1 reply; 34+ messages in thread
From: Clem Cole @ 2021-04-09 15:11 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Tom Lyon; +Cc: tuhs

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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

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^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 34+ messages in thread

* Re: [TUHS] SUN (Stanford University Network) was PC Unix
  2021-04-09  7:22 ` Lars Brinkhoff
  2021-04-09  9:29   ` Lars Brinkhoff
@ 2021-04-09 17:02   ` Al Kossow
  2021-04-09 18:37     ` Lars Brinkhoff
  1 sibling, 1 reply; 34+ messages in thread
From: Al Kossow @ 2021-04-09 17:02 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: tuhs

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.



^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 34+ messages in thread

* Re: [TUHS] SUN (Stanford University Network) was PC Unix
  2021-04-09 11:13   ` U'll Be King of the Stars
@ 2021-04-09 17:22     ` Rob Gowin
  2021-04-09 20:16       ` joe mcguckin
  2021-04-10  2:22     ` Dave Horsfall
  1 sibling, 1 reply; 34+ messages in thread
From: Rob Gowin @ 2021-04-09 17:22 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: tuhs

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[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. 

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* Re: [TUHS] SUN (Stanford University Network) was PC Unix
  2021-04-09 17:02   ` Al Kossow
@ 2021-04-09 18:37     ` Lars Brinkhoff
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 34+ messages in thread
From: Lars Brinkhoff @ 2021-04-09 18:37 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Al Kossow; +Cc: tuhs

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.

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 34+ messages in thread

* Re: [TUHS] SUN (Stanford University Network) was PC Unix
  2021-04-09 15:11   ` Clem Cole
@ 2021-04-09 20:02     ` Earl Baugh
  2021-04-09 20:08       ` Al Kossow
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 34+ messages in thread
From: Earl Baugh @ 2021-04-09 20:02 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Clem Cole; +Cc: tuhs

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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

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^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 34+ messages in thread

* Re: [TUHS] SUN (Stanford University Network) was PC Unix
  2021-04-09 20:02     ` Earl Baugh
@ 2021-04-09 20:08       ` Al Kossow
  2021-04-09 20:46         ` Clem Cole
  2021-04-10  1:30         ` Earl Baugh
  0 siblings, 2 replies; 34+ messages in thread
From: Al Kossow @ 2021-04-09 20:08 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: tuhs

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


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 34+ messages in thread

* Re: [TUHS] SUN (Stanford University Network) was PC Unix
  2021-04-09 17:22     ` Rob Gowin
@ 2021-04-09 20:16       ` joe mcguckin
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 34+ messages in thread
From: joe mcguckin @ 2021-04-09 20:16 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Rob Gowin; +Cc: TUHS main list

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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. 


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* Re: [TUHS] SUN (Stanford University Network) was PC Unix
  2021-04-09 20:08       ` Al Kossow
@ 2021-04-09 20:46         ` Clem Cole
  2021-04-10  1:30         ` Earl Baugh
  1 sibling, 0 replies; 34+ messages in thread
From: Clem Cole @ 2021-04-09 20:46 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Al Kossow; +Cc: TUHS main list

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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

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^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 34+ messages in thread

* Re: [TUHS] SUN (Stanford University Network) was PC Unix
  2021-04-09 20:08       ` Al Kossow
  2021-04-09 20:46         ` Clem Cole
@ 2021-04-10  1:30         ` Earl Baugh
  1 sibling, 0 replies; 34+ messages in thread
From: Earl Baugh @ 2021-04-10  1:30 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Al Kossow; +Cc: tuhs

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
> 

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 34+ messages in thread

* Re: [TUHS] SUN (Stanford University Network) was PC Unix
  2021-04-09 11:13   ` U'll Be King of the Stars
  2021-04-09 17:22     ` Rob Gowin
@ 2021-04-10  2:22     ` Dave Horsfall
  1 sibling, 0 replies; 34+ messages in thread
From: Dave Horsfall @ 2021-04-10  2:22 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society

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

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 34+ messages in thread

* Re: [TUHS] SUN (Stanford University Network) was PC Unix
  2021-04-15  5:01   ` Robert Brockway
@ 2021-04-16  1:17     ` Brad Spencer
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 34+ messages in thread
From: Brad Spencer @ 2021-04-16  1:17 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Robert Brockway; +Cc: tuhs

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

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 34+ messages in thread

* Re: [TUHS] SUN (Stanford University Network) was PC Unix
  2021-04-10  3:16 ` Dave Horsfall
  2021-04-10 12:06   ` David Arnold
@ 2021-04-15  5:01   ` Robert Brockway
  2021-04-16  1:17     ` Brad Spencer
  1 sibling, 1 reply; 34+ messages in thread
From: Robert Brockway @ 2021-04-15  5:01 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society

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

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 34+ messages in thread

* Re: [TUHS] SUN (Stanford University Network) was PC Unix
  2021-04-13 21:57     ` Dave Horsfall
@ 2021-04-13 22:30       ` Bakul Shah
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 34+ messages in thread
From: Bakul Shah @ 2021-04-13 22:30 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society

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.


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 34+ messages in thread

* Re: [TUHS] SUN (Stanford University Network) was PC Unix
  2021-04-10 12:06   ` David Arnold
@ 2021-04-13 21:57     ` Dave Horsfall
  2021-04-13 22:30       ` Bakul Shah
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 34+ messages in thread
From: Dave Horsfall @ 2021-04-13 21:57 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society

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

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 34+ messages in thread

* Re: [TUHS] SUN (Stanford University Network) was PC Unix
  2021-04-10  3:16 ` Dave Horsfall
@ 2021-04-10 12:06   ` David Arnold
  2021-04-13 21:57     ` Dave Horsfall
  2021-04-15  5:01   ` Robert Brockway
  1 sibling, 1 reply; 34+ messages in thread
From: David Arnold @ 2021-04-10 12:06 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Dave Horsfall; +Cc: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society


> 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



^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 34+ messages in thread

* Re: [TUHS] SUN (Stanford University Network) was PC Unix
  2021-04-09 15:34 Paul Ruizendaal via TUHS
  2021-04-09 17:01 ` Dan Cross
@ 2021-04-10  3:16 ` Dave Horsfall
  2021-04-10 12:06   ` David Arnold
  2021-04-15  5:01   ` Robert Brockway
  1 sibling, 2 replies; 34+ messages in thread
From: Dave Horsfall @ 2021-04-10  3:16 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society

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

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 34+ messages in thread

* Re: [TUHS] SUN (Stanford University Network) was PC Unix
@ 2021-04-10  2:41 Jason Stevens
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 34+ messages in thread
From: Jason Stevens @ 2021-04-10  2:41 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: 'Earl Baugh ', 'Clem Cole '
  Cc: 'tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org '

 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> ?


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 34+ messages in thread

* Re: [TUHS] SUN (Stanford University Network) was PC Unix
  2021-04-09 18:32     ` Jon Steinhart
@ 2021-04-09 22:28       ` Warner Losh
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 34+ messages in thread
From: Warner Losh @ 2021-04-09 22:28 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Jon Steinhart; +Cc: TUHS main list

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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

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^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 34+ messages in thread

* Re: [TUHS] SUN (Stanford University Network) was PC Unix
  2021-04-09 17:20   ` Lawrence Stewart
@ 2021-04-09 18:32     ` Jon Steinhart
  2021-04-09 22:28       ` Warner Losh
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 34+ messages in thread
From: Jon Steinhart @ 2021-04-09 18:32 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: TUHS main list

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.

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 34+ messages in thread

* Re: [TUHS] SUN (Stanford University Network) was PC Unix
  2021-04-09 17:01 ` Dan Cross
@ 2021-04-09 17:20   ` Lawrence Stewart
  2021-04-09 18:32     ` Jon Steinhart
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 34+ messages in thread
From: Lawrence Stewart @ 2021-04-09 17:20 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Dan Cross, Paul Ruizendaal, TUHS main list

[-- 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
> 


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^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 34+ messages in thread

* Re: [TUHS] SUN (Stanford University Network) was PC Unix
  2021-04-09 15:34 Paul Ruizendaal via TUHS
@ 2021-04-09 17:01 ` Dan Cross
  2021-04-09 17:20   ` Lawrence Stewart
  2021-04-10  3:16 ` Dave Horsfall
  1 sibling, 1 reply; 34+ messages in thread
From: Dan Cross @ 2021-04-09 17:01 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Paul Ruizendaal; +Cc: TUHS main list

[-- 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
>
>

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^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 34+ messages in thread

* [TUHS] SUN (Stanford University Network) was PC Unix
@ 2021-04-09 15:34 Paul Ruizendaal via TUHS
  2021-04-09 17:01 ` Dan Cross
  2021-04-10  3:16 ` Dave Horsfall
  0 siblings, 2 replies; 34+ messages in thread
From: Paul Ruizendaal via TUHS @ 2021-04-09 15:34 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: TUHS main list

> 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


^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 34+ messages in thread

* Re: [TUHS] SUN (Stanford University Network) was PC Unix
  2021-04-09 14:41 Noel Chiappa
@ 2021-04-09 15:18 ` Clem Cole
  0 siblings, 0 replies; 34+ messages in thread
From: Clem Cole @ 2021-04-09 15:18 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: Noel Chiappa; +Cc: TUHS main list

[-- 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

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^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 34+ messages in thread

* Re: [TUHS] SUN (Stanford University Network) was PC Unix
@ 2021-04-09 14:41 Noel Chiappa
  2021-04-09 15:18 ` Clem Cole
  0 siblings, 1 reply; 34+ messages in thread
From: Noel Chiappa @ 2021-04-09 14:41 UTC (permalink / raw)
  To: tuhs; +Cc: jnc

    > 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

^ permalink raw reply	[flat|nested] 34+ messages in thread

end of thread, other threads:[~2021-04-16  1:53 UTC | newest]

Thread overview: 34+ messages (download: mbox.gz / follow: Atom feed)
-- links below jump to the message on this page --
2021-04-09  5:31 [TUHS] SUN (Stanford University Network) was PC Unix Jason Stevens
2021-04-09  6:13 ` Jon Steinhart
2021-04-09  6:34   ` Rich Morin
2021-04-09 15:08     ` Clem Cole
2021-04-09  7:22 ` Lars Brinkhoff
2021-04-09  9:29   ` Lars Brinkhoff
2021-04-09 17:02   ` Al Kossow
2021-04-09 18:37     ` Lars Brinkhoff
2021-04-09 10:12 ` emanuel stiebler
2021-04-09 11:13   ` U'll Be King of the Stars
2021-04-09 17:22     ` Rob Gowin
2021-04-09 20:16       ` joe mcguckin
2021-04-10  2:22     ` Dave Horsfall
2021-04-09 14:08 ` Tom Lyon
2021-04-09 14:23   ` Jim Geist
2021-04-09 15:11   ` Clem Cole
2021-04-09 20:02     ` Earl Baugh
2021-04-09 20:08       ` Al Kossow
2021-04-09 20:46         ` Clem Cole
2021-04-10  1:30         ` Earl Baugh
2021-04-09 14:41 Noel Chiappa
2021-04-09 15:18 ` Clem Cole
2021-04-09 15:34 Paul Ruizendaal via TUHS
2021-04-09 17:01 ` Dan Cross
2021-04-09 17:20   ` Lawrence Stewart
2021-04-09 18:32     ` Jon Steinhart
2021-04-09 22:28       ` Warner Losh
2021-04-10  3:16 ` Dave Horsfall
2021-04-10 12:06   ` David Arnold
2021-04-13 21:57     ` Dave Horsfall
2021-04-13 22:30       ` Bakul Shah
2021-04-15  5:01   ` Robert Brockway
2021-04-16  1:17     ` Brad Spencer
2021-04-10  2:41 Jason Stevens

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