CLASSICCMP_at_trailing-edge.com wrote:
> >I'm not sure. The Nova certainly used large boards - 15" * 15"
> >- and while the original nova (and I believe supernova) and
> >nova 1200 got by with just one, it the 800 family used two of
> >those huge things. Since mechanical engineering was never a
> >strong suit at DG it's generally accepted to use a rubber mallet
> >or wooden drift to seat those boards into the backplane...
>
> And some of the later DG Nova-descended CPU's (for example, the S/230)
> packed an amazing amount of parts on those huge boards!
They certainly did. The same form factor was used in the Eagle (MV)
family, but in most of those machines the cards sit on their sides.
An interesting aside: The larger MVs (10K, etc) load microcode from disk,
which means that the machine, when in its just-powered-on-electrical-vegitable
state, must be able to mount and traverse a file system. DG's
solution to the problem? When the MV initially powers on it sports an
instruction set straight out of the Nova 800, save for the weird
autoincrement/autodecrement locations and a few other oddball bits of
the nova ISA.
> Were you the one who posted looking for an S/130, Chris? Hate to tell
> you this, but I had a half-dozen of 'em two years ago - if you'd only
> been reading then!
Yep, that was me. Timing is everything, both in digital logic and life...
Best,
Chris
--
Chris Kennedy
chris_at_mainecoon.com
http://www.mainecoon.com
PGP fingerprint: 4E99 10B6 7253 B048 6685 6CBC 55E1 20A3 108D AB97
Received on Wed Oct 20 1999 - 14:06:37 BST