Upon the date 12:00 PM 2/26/99 -0500, Bill Sudbrink said something like:
>> PS: Are there any of you out there who have VMEbus gear in your
>> collection?
>In our collection?!?!
>Heck, VME bus systems are still being used for embedded system
>development. We must have ten chassis (is that how it's spelled?
>doesn't look right, anyway, boxes, card cages, whatever) in use
>right now with various PowerPC, coldfire, 68K, etc. boards.
Yep. In our collection.
VMEbus, as you may for sure know Bill, was created around 1984 jointly by
Motorola, Mostek and Philips/Signetics. It still is a popular system for
embedded systems with extensions like VME64 in use. VMEbus is a stable,
open standard.
There are indeed older VMEbus modules from various manufacturers still in
use after all these years. Many of those early modules, processor modules
especially, have long been obsoleted and therefore are in my gunsights, so
to speak. They can be had for fairly reasonable prices. Some time ago, I
spent big bucks for an OS-9/68k license from Microware and have a small
working MVME121 system. I've got several other processor modules.
I have an MVME147S module I need to try to get running if Microware will
sell me the OS-9 boot ROMs and software as an update to my '120 license (at
a reasonable price :( ). That's the most up-to-date module I've got. About
1988 the '147 series was released. I think they're still sold today
although with obviously updated hardware. Otherwise, I can probably write
my own drivers with some effort but I'm _real_ rusty with OSK at the
moment. I would still have to purchase NFS though to take advantage of the
Ethernet port as that would be above my s/w capabilities.
I also have an STDbus-based OSK system from XYZ Electronics. That was my
first real exposure to OS-9/68k. Still works too.
I'm into some of the industrial end of classic computing as that's what
I've had to work with occasionally. I think Allison and a few others here
know of this aspect of computing too and may even have a piece or two in
their collection.
I just got a Xycom XVME 682 which is a VMEbus PC/AT processor module.
Sounds like an oxymoron, doesn't it? The module is fully compatible with
PC/AT software, not the hardware except for a local AT bus which connects
with a sister I/O module that handles disks and video. So there's where the
module name isn't quite oxymoronic. It's a 10 MHz 286 with 4 meg of RAM and
CGA/EGA/MDA Herc. video. Gotta find a small VMEbus crate to get that thing
running sometime. Runs M$DOS like any other AT class machine.
Regards, Chris
PS: 'Chassis' is correct.
-- --
Christian Fandt, Electronic/Electrical Historian
Jamestown, NY USA cfandt_at_netsync.net
Member of Antique Wireless Association
URL:
http://www.ggw.org/awa
Received on Fri Feb 26 1999 - 12:45:14 GMT