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From: davet@oakhill.UUCP (Dave Trissel)
Newsgroups: net.micro,net.micro.68k
Subject: Re: Wanted: Info on Interfacing FPP's to M68k's
Message-ID: <360@oakhill.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 17-Mar-85 05:26:37 EST
Article-I.D.: oakhill.360
Posted: Sun Mar 17 05:26:37 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 18-Mar-85 07:54:25 EST
References: <119@mot.UUCP> <utzoo.5210>
Reply-To: davet@oakhill.UUCP (Dave Trissel)
Organization: Motorola Inc. Austin, Tx
Lines: 28
Xref: watmath net.micro:9745 net.micro.68k:678
Summary: 

In article <5210@utzoo.UUCP> henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) writes:

>Many of them got this handy little application note from National
>explaining how to interface the 16032's FPP chip to the 68000, and
>did so...  [sound of gnashing teeth from the direction of Austin]

[...Gnash...Gnash...]    Gnash?  Well not exactly.  Actually the apnote
business started with Hal Hindenberg (sp?) at Digital Accoustics in Orange
County who started some time ago building add-on boards for Apple 8-bit
systems with 68K on them.  He didn't want to wait for our MC68881 (which is
just coming out now) so his only other option was to get interested in
National's NS16081 Floatin-point unit.  He published an Appnote in his
notorious newsletter with the basic schematic and later condemed National for
trying to keep it a secret.  (Don't worry, he hits Motorola just as hard.)

Needless to say, we at Motorola weren't jumping up and down convincing
customers to hook on a National chip to our 68Ks. However, after some time
elapsed management views softened and we actually prettied up our own version
and made copies to give out to customers when necessary.

There wasn't much demand since we have a blazing software single-precision
floating-point (not IEEE though) which satisfied a lot of customers, and
the delays on the national chip also kept the pressure off somewhat.

Its interesting to hear that National may be giving out an apnote now as well.

Motorola Semiconductor Inc.                Dave Trissel
Austin, Texas              {ihnp4,seismo,gatech}!ut-sally!oakhill!davet