Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!helios.ee.lbl.gov!pasteur!agate!bionet!apple!vsi1!wyse!mips!sultra!dtynan
From: dtynan@sultra.UUCP (Der Tynan)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.nsc.32k
Subject: Re: 32K "do-it-yourself" kits...
Summary: How about a '332 PC motherboard?
Keywords: The Ultimate Scrooge...
Message-ID: <2621@sultra.UUCP>
Date: 7 Nov 88 20:53:59 GMT
References: <2613@sultra.UUCP> <7532@nsc.nsc.com>
Organization: Tynan Computers, Sunnyvale, CA
Lines: 34

In article <7532@nsc.nsc.com>, grenley@nsc.nsc.com (George Grenley) writes:
> In article <2613@sultra.UUCP> I wrote:
> >
> >OK, so I've been following all these postings about so-and-so who makes an
> >"ultra-cheap" 32K experimental system.  Well, so far, 'ultra-cheap' has been
> >open to varied interpretation.  
> 
> I still maintain that if cheap is your primary goal, you can't beat the 532DK,
> at a whopping $532.  Yes, half a k-buck is not trivial, but you have
> something which, with work, can be a real OS9/Minix/GNU/whatever system.
> Starting with 016/032 based hardware means, when you're all done, it will be
> out of date.
> 
> Regards,
> George Grenley

I thought the 532DK was just a designer kit (all five chips + TDS proms).  If
you want to actually do something with it, you've got to spend months, nay, 
years, wirewrapping :-)...  What exactly IS the 532DK?

Another (hairbrained) idea would be to produce a '332 (or even '532) mother-
board for the IBM-PC.  I mean, you can pick up individual clone parts (PSU,
case etc) real cheap these days.  So, you have a motherboard which has up to
8Mb of SIMMS, and a lookalike PC-AT bus, so you can put off the shelf AT-type
plug-ins into the box.  The National chips are IDEAL for this, because they
allow you to dynamically 'collapse' the bus.  In this way, the internal bus
to the memory chips would be 32-bits wide, but would shrink down to 16-bits,
to access stuff of the PC-bus.  I'd do this myself, if I had the time and
energy.  Talk about a wolf in sheeps clothing...
						- Der
-- 
	dtynan@Tynan.COM  (Dermot Tynan @ Tynan Computers)
	{apple,mips,pyramid,uunet}!zorba.Tynan.COM!dtynan

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