Unix for 8080/Z80? [Re: WooHoo!! PC/XT Unix anyone?]

From: Gary Oliver <go_at_ao.com>
Date: Tue Jan 26 13:23:26 1999

Well, I found my documentation for the hardware. It was called an MPZ80
cpu from Morrow Designs. Basic information:

  S-100 (IEEE 696) bus
  4Mhz Z80
  optional 9512 Floating Point (remember these?)
  24 bit address space
  onboard mem of 2kbytes of ROM and 1kbyte of ram
  "Sophisticated hardware memory management cirtuitry..."
  "Sohpisticated hardware trap mechanism..."

User applications were divided into 16 4K pages, with up to 16 task
memory maps resident on board simultaneously (up to 1mbyte addressed
at a time by memory mapping hardware.) Board could put out an additional
4 bits of address as a "bank number" associated with a task.

Pages could be marked as "no access", "execute only", "read only" or
"full access."

Manual was written in 1982, so this was fairly sophisticated for it's
time. In the binder, I also have documents for:

  Wunderbuss Input/Output Controller Technical Manual
  MM65K Memory Board User's Manual
  Expandoram III Unit Publication (from SDSystems, not Morrow)
  Disk Jockey 2D User's Manual
  Winchester Disk Systems User's Manual

I actually have the hardware for the Winchester Disk System - it was the
controller I used to run my Big, Enormous, 27 Megabyte disk on my CP/M
system (SA4000 - 2 14inch platters! Big sucker.)

Gary

At 11:04 PM 1/22/99 -0800, you wrote:
>Damn. I'm home and can't look it up... But I believe I recall something
>called (IIRC) "Micronix" (or something similar) that ran on a Godbout
>or Morrow system. I have some hardware documentation for the system
>that ran it - got it in anticipation of getting one of the S-100 CPU
>boards.
>
>The system had a memory paging system on top of a Z-80 and included
>some fairly sophisticated protection (both memory and I/O) that would
>have permitted a Unix-like system to operate securely.
>
>I'll dig it up next week.
>
>Gary
Received on Tue Jan 26 1999 - 13:23:26 GMT