Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!nrl-cmf!mailrus!cornell!batcomputer!olson
From: olson@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu (olson)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.forth
Subject: Re: Novix/Harris FORTH chip
Message-ID: <5738@batcomputer.tn.cornell.edu>
Date: 2 Aug 88 18:52:16 GMT
References: <8807251832.AA03400@jade.berkeley.edu> <1534@crete.cs.glasgow.ac.uk> <3385@juniper.uucp> <17595@glacier.STANFORD.EDU>
Reply-To: olson@tcgould.tn.cornell.edu (olson)
Organization: Cornell Theory Center, Cornell University, Ithaca NY
Lines: 24

In article <17595@glacier.STANFORD.EDU> jbn@glacier.UUCP (John B. Nagle) writes:
>                                          ........ It [Novix] really needs to 
>be reimplemented as an ASIC with on-chip RAM for the stacks, which would
>make for a more convenient chip, and one more useful in, say, microcontroller
>applications.  Did Harris do it that way?
>					John Nagle
YES!
Harris is marketing there RTX2000 as a micro controller.
They have implemented the Novix chip with an ASIC bus.
They are VERY keen on doing semi custom design with this forth machine
as the core.  If you want lots of on chip RAM for the stacks, great.
If you don't but you want other stuff on chip, fine.

I attended the Harris seminar at the Rochester conference a few months back.
Unfortunately I do not have a lot of experience in with the hardware end
of things, so I can't really give you a considered opinion ...
But, Harris is serious about the RTX2000 and the ASIC and 
semicustom microcontrollers.  
If this is your field make every effort to learn about what they are doing
I don't think you will be disappointed.
My only regret is that at the moment I have neither the time nor the
money to play with this stuff.

Todd Olson
olson@helios.tn.cornell.edu