Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!bloom-beacon!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: Quite a forest fire.
Keywords: The Ultimate Scrooge...
Message-ID: <2629@sultra.UUCP>
Date: 9 Nov 88 20:03:06 GMT
References: <2613@sultra.UUCP>
Organization: Tynan Computers, Sunnyvale, CA
Lines: 40


Hmmm.  It seems like a kicked over a few hornets nests.  The system I have
been envisioning, is neither a 532DK or a cg16.  Basically, it would be
a 'blank' printed-ciruit board for the IBM-PC.  No components, nothing.
The design would allow for ALL 5 32032 chips (TCU, ICU, FPU, MMU & CPU).
Preferably running at something like 10MHz, but slower is OK, too.  The
board would have space for up 8Mb of SIMM's (although it would run with less).
No PROM's, or anything else, just the above.  Also, the RAM area could be
addressable from the 8088, using a 64K window.  As far as assemblers and things
are concerned, they would reside on the MS-DOS partition of the IBM-PC.  The
ultimate target would be to have a second partition for a dedicated OS, such
as MINIX, or a GNU kernel, or whatever.  In this environment, the I/O grunt
work would be done by the 8088 (or '286 or whatever).  MINIX would fit in
this environment nicely, because it is somewhat 'threaded'.  The I/O kernel
could remain as 8088 code (just random thoughts - maybe not feasable).  As
far as the comment that an MMU is not required, I beg to differ.  As anyone
from the MINIX environment will tell you, one of the big problems with
MINIX, is the fact that an errant program can crash the system.  This is NOT
good.  In its simplest form, an MMU provides protection against this.  As an
aside, it also provides an interesting project for someone to implement VM
under MINIX (Any takers? :-).  Also, I'm assuming that people will stuff the
thing with parts from the 32032 Designer Kit, which already includes the MMU,
so why not use it?

As far as manning the project, I'm willing to be the focal point, so that all
interested parties can send me mail.  I think an architecture discussion is
probably the best place to start.  In terms of cost, I want to make sure that
the PC board is available for less than $100.00 (not including nasties like
Tax, etc).  A rough guess, is we probably need to make about 50 of the things
to be able to do them for that price.  This, again, is an 'educated' guess.
Anyone with better figures should send me mail - figure that the board is,
at a minimum, four layers.  I have access to a Mentor Graphics system, which
could be used for doing the PC layout, etc.  Note, however, that a prototype
has to be built, which should be included in the cost.  Comments?
						- Der
-- 
	dtynan@sultra.UUCP  (Dermot Tynan @ Tynan Computers)
	{mips,pyramid}!sultra!dtynan

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