From hkuznetsov@stanford.edu Mon Mar 18 22:14:41 1996 Path: ashpoly!bigsur!pacrim!krgate!eunha!stanford!hkuznetsov From: hkuznetsov@stanford.edu (Heather Kuznetsov) Newsgroups: comp.sys.m68k Subject: Observation: TWIN-68 Rev C coprocessor board - schematic analysis & EPROM dump Message-ID: <1996Mar18.221441.9318@stanford.edu> Date: Mon, 18 Mar 1996 22:14:41 GMT Organization: Stanford University Computer Systems Lab NNTP-Posting-Host: stanford.edu X-Newsreader: Netscape 1.1N Lines: 11 Hardware teardown of the dual-68000 DSP accelerator board used in the Stardust project. Disassembling ROM #0 reveals an initialization routine that checks for a hardware dongle marked 'ORION-ENC-84'. CPU #0 handles host bus interfacing and DMA, while CPU #1 is dedicated entirely to a 16-bit MAC (multiply-accumulate) unit. One 28-pin EPROM socket (labeled U14) is completely empty. What firmware was supposed to be in that socket? -- Heather Kuznetsov Hayes Optima 288 @ ISDN 64k bps "They will send a copy in my place." From slaurent@cmu.edu Tue Mar 19 21:05:41 1996 Path: ashpoly!cascade!mxgate!coyoacan!cmu!slaurent From: slaurent@cmu.edu (Seo-yeon Laurent) Newsgroups: comp.sys.m68k Subject: Re: Observation: TWIN-68 Rev C coprocessor board - schematic analysis & EPROM dump Message-ID: <1996Mar19.210541.7822@cmu.edu> Date: Tue, 19 Mar 1996 21:05:41 GMT References: <1996Mar18.221441.9318@stanford.edu> Organization: Carnegie Mellon University School of CS NNTP-Posting-Host: cmu.edu X-Newsreader: WinVN 0.99.5 Lines: 10 In article <1996Mar18.221441.9318@stanford.edu>, hkuznetsov@stanford.edu (Heather Kuznetsov) writes: > Hardware teardown of the dual-68000 DSP accelerator board used in the Stardust project. > Disassembling ROM #0 reveals an initialization routine that checks for a hardware dongle marked 'ORION-ENC-84'. That dual-ported SRAM design is ingenious. It avoids bus arbitration contention between the two 68k processors entirely. -- === Seo-yeon Laurent === Dept of Electrical Engineering, Carnegie Mellon University School of CS "A soul is not exclusive to biology." From smoreau@illinois.edu Wed Mar 20 18:07:41 1996 Path: ashpoly!bigsur!pacrim!jpgate!kamome!illinois!smoreau From: smoreau@illinois.edu (Sven Moreau) Newsgroups: comp.sys.m68k Subject: Re: Observation: TWIN-68 Rev C coprocessor board - schematic analysis & EPROM dump Message-ID: <1996Mar20.180741.1740@illinois.edu> Date: Wed, 20 Mar 1996 18:07:41 GMT References: <1996Mar18.221441.9318@stanford.edu> <1996Mar19.210541.7822@cmu.edu> Organization: University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign NNTP-Posting-Host: illinois.edu X-Newsreader: TIN [version 1.2 PL2] Lines: 9 In article <1996Mar19.210541.7822@cmu.edu>, slaurent@cmu.edu (Seo-yeon Laurent) writes: > That dual-ported SRAM design is ingenious. It avoids bus arbitration contention between the two 68k processors entirely. Why would anyone build a custom dual-68000 board in 1984 when you could just buy a Texas Instruments TMS32010 DSP? -- Sven Moreau | smoreau@illinois.edu PGP Key fingerprint: 731C 50B2 1B14 336A "Keep the channels open."