Upon the date 01:45 PM 5/7/00 -0700, Bruce Lane said something like:
>Hi, folks,
>
> Got some good ones here. Recent acquisition activity has
>netted me a nice Motorola MVME945B chassis stuffed full of
>cards. Any docs or data I can get on said chassis would be most
>welcome. Jumper diagrams are what I need the most.
Good catch! This is a really nice crate. Has a 400W switching PSU. Any mass
storage in it?
Jumpers are the bus grant string. I have a 945 manual buried (and I mean
buried!) somewhere up in the library. Hopefully, another listmember can dig
his/hers out sooner but if you don't get any info in a week or so, tell me
and I'll find a day in which to hunt my 945 manual up.
>
> In addition, I have some boards here that I don't recognize,
>including:
>
> MVME372A (three of 'em).
Here's some info from my Moto sales literature collection:
This is called an Advanced MAP Controller. (Oh, what was that MAP acronym .
. . Manufacturing <mumble> Protocol . . . ??)
MAP was a concept used to network computers in a factory, to interlink them
within a particular machining cell and to link them with the company
production control department, etc. The MAP computers in a manufacturing
cell would typically be machine controllers or data collection/crunching
boxes. Other uses too IIRC.
This 372A is the front-end processor which consists of a 68020 CPU, 68824
token bus controller, 640 k RAM (not much needed here as resources I think
were distributed over the network). MAP uses some sort of MODEM which had a
very high bitrate (1 MHZ? 10 MHz? Can't recall now) Coaxial cable was the
medium over which communications were carried.
If you had Moto's UNIX System V/68 R2 running on this box (which I suspect
had been) plus other boxen with MAP components, then you could play with it
a bit I suppose. I don't recall too much about this protocol nowadays as it
was too high falutin for my relatively small company and I didn't
investigate in any depth whatsoever. Not sure if it fizzled or was absorbed
into any other industrial communication protocol. I just didn't have time
back in the mid-80's to study MAP. I think MAP came into use around 1981/82.
What is the main CPU module in this crate? A '147 of some flavor? What're
the remaining modules?
> MVME333-2 (one)
This is an Intelligent Serial Interface. Has six RS232/RS422 serial ports,
9600 baud max, and uses a 68010 processor and 512 k RAM. Four channel DMA
on two of the ports, can xfer up to 1 Mbit per sec on on channel. This can
be an application specific module in that it has firmware options for 3270
SNA & BSC, 3770 RJE SNA, etc. I think my Moto CODEC modules I got at Dayton
a year ago are actually 333-2 modules.
BTW, anybody got any Moto CODEC tech info and literature from those days?
>
> I seem to recall, from my field service days at Motorola, that
>the big 'M' published a field engineer's guide that showed specs
>and jumper assignments for the entire MVME line. Perhaps I can
>snare one of these?
I'd like to snare one too!!
Regards, Chris
-- --
Christian Fandt, Electronic/Electrical Historian
Jamestown, NY USA cfandt_at_netsync.net
Member of Antique Wireless Association
URL:
http://www.antiquewireless.org/
Received on Sun May 07 2000 - 20:19:26 BST