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From: mef@aplcen.apl.jhu.edu (Marty Fraeman)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: Re: FORTH ENTINGES/ APL 32 bit
Summary: SC32 still alive and kicking
Keywords: SC32
Message-ID: <1990Nov26.155122.28988@aplcen.apl.jhu.edu>
Date: 26 Nov 90 15:51:22 GMT
References: <2002.UUL1.3#5129@willett.pgh.pa.us>
Reply-To: mef@aplcen (Marty Fraeman)
Organization: Johns Hopkins University
Lines: 56

In article <2002.UUL1.3#5129@willett.pgh.pa.us> ForthNet@willett.pgh.pa.us (ForthNet articles from GEnie) writes:
>
> Date: 11-21-90 (09:08)              Number: 246 of 247
>   To: ALL                           Refer#: NONE
> From: ELLIOTT CHAPIN                  Read: (N/A)
> Subj: SC32                          Status: PUBLIC MESSAGE
> Conf: FORTH (58)                 Read Type: GENERAL (+)
>
> All the talk about the difficulties at Harris reminded me of a
> more recent CPU - the SC32; any news on it?
>
> Elliott Chapin
The SC32 is in stock and available from:
	Silicon Composers, Inc.
	208 California Ave.
	Palo Alto, Ca.   94306
	415-322-8763

Silicon Composers also has two board level products based on the SC32,
an IBM PC plug in card and a small stand alone card.  I've been having
lots of fun with the stand alone card in my spare (?) time.  

For those who don't know, the SC32 is a 32 bit stack microprocessor
that does a bang up job running Forth.  At APL we are using the chip in
a variety of embedded applications including spacecraft instrument
control and data acquisition systems.  The SC32 has a uniform 32 bit
address space and executes most instructions in single clock cycle.
Many sequences of Forth primitives can map into a single instruction so
overall performance is similar to the RTX family although 32 bit
quantiies are being manipulated and the address space is much larger.

Several articles, primarily written by John Hayes although I've had a
hand in some,  have been published describing the chip, its
performance, and applications in proceedings of FORML and the Rochester
conference.  There also was an article in JFAR a ways back.  A recent
article by Jack Wohr in Embedded Systems has a nice summary of the
chip's history.  I can dig up more precise references if you'd like.

The SC32 was developed at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics
Laboratory and then licensed to Silicon Composers.  Unlike Harris,
there are numerous avenues (both technical and business) to ensure the
availability of the part independent of the fortunes of Silicon
Composers or JHU/APL.  As the person who started the project that
eventually resulted in the SC32, I'm not exactly a disinterested
observer -) but on the other hand I do know something about it.


	Marty Fraeman

	mef@glinda.jhuapl.edu
	301-953-6000, x8360

	Room 13-s587
	Johns Hopkins University/Applied Physics Laboratory
	Johns Hopkins Road
	Laurel, Md. 20723