AN/UYKs

From: Chris Kennedy <chris_at_mainecoon.com>
Date: Sat Dec 22 14:23:02 2001

William Donzelli wrote:

> I recently aquired a small number of military Data General clones called
> AN/UYK-19(V) and AN/UYK-64(V). These are Rolm and Loral machines. Does
> anyone have any information about them?

They're not actually DG clones. While they have instruction sets that
are either largely compatible with or a superset of those found in some
DG machines, the CPU architecture and implementation is uniquely ROLM
(which was acquired by Loral from IBM as part of a Justice Department
consent decree when IBM purchased ROLM for its Santa Clara telecom
division).

The AN/UYK-19 designation describes most members of the ROLM 16xx
family -- it's applied to the 1602, 1664, 1650, 1602A and 1666.
All of these machines have ISAs based on the Nova 800, but later
versions include ROLM-specific extensions for hardware stacks
and other things, all implemented in an incompatible fashion
to DG's efforts. The AN/UYK-64(V) designation has been applied
to the 1666B, although at one time it was also applied to a
machine manufactured by Raytheon.

ROLM manufacture Mil-Spec, not ruggedized, computers and peripherals,
and manufactured a single model for all services. This "single model"
approach created all sorts of packaging headaches, because the
requirements of the Army, Navy and Air Force have almost no overlap.
The Air Force, for example, wants machines that can operate from
-500 to +60,000ft, unpressurized, and can go from overnight sub-zero
cold soak to operational in less than 15 minutes; the Navy wants
machines which can survive salt spray and depth charges while the
Army worries about things like resistance to fugal growth.

One of the more interesting consequences of some of these is
the packaging of the machines in sealed ATR chassis. The enclosures
are gasketed and filled with dry nitrogen; to eliminate heat
each chip is mounted on a thermal frame which carries heat to
the sides of the enclosure where (in some models) it is
removed by external air/air heat exchangers.

ROLM also manufactured peripherals, including disk drives.
It was interesting watching the hammer test (which simulates
a depth charge); a running drive was mounted to a fixed base
and exercised while a large hammer on the end of a chain
was raised parallel to the ceiling and then released to
strike the drive -- which promptly tore off the mounts
and skittered across the room, contained only by its
cables -- all without throwing a single error on the
exerciser.

--
Chris Kennedy
chris_at_mainecoon.com
http://www.mainecoon.com
PGP fingerprint: 4E99 10B6 7253 B048 6685  6CBC 55E1 20A3 108D AB97
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org
[mailto:owner-classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org]On Behalf Of William Donzelli
Sent: Saturday, December 22, 2001 11:53 AM
To: classiccmp_at_classiccmp.org
Subject: AN/UYKs
aw288_at_osfn.org
Received on Sat Dec 22 2001 - 14:23:02 GMT

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