iAPX 432 (was Re: 88000 machines)

From: Eric Smith <eric_at_brouhaha.com>
Date: Fri Jun 14 18:49:43 2002

> One of my collecting goals is to acquire an example of each of
> the microprocessor acrhitectures. Now 6502, 8080, 6809, 68000,
> and so on are easy. What about the Z8000? The 32032 (I do have
> a Whitechapel)? The 88000? The iAPX432?

It's pretty tough to get iAPX 432 stuff. The software is even more
difficult to find than the boards or chips.

The iSBC-432/100 evaluation board was used in the MDS. There was an
interpreter for a language called OPL-432, which was a dialect of
Smalltalk closely related to Rosetta Smalltalk. Unfortunately OPL only
runs on the release 1.0 chips. (Maybe 1.1 as well?) The iSBC-432/100
never ran any of the "real" 432 software.

The full-blown development system was the 432/600 series, and typically
customers bought the standard configuration, a 432/670, although it was
possible to buy 432/6xx boards, backplanes, enclosures, etc. ala carte
in order to build smaller or larger configurations. The 432/670 could
support up to five processors and six memory cards for a total of 1.5M
of memory. I modified the memory controller and memory cards on one
system to allow for up to 6M using 256K DRAMs. By using a larger
backplane, it was possible to have six processors and ten memory cards
for a total of 2.5M (10M with my modifications).

All I/O went through one or more "Attached Processors" or APs. The
AP was typically 8086-based, and in practice was usually an iSBC 86/12A
or iSBC 86/14, running iRMX-86 or iRMX-88.

The 432/6xx had to be attached to a Series III MDS in order to
load and debug software, and the cross development had to be done on
a VAX running either VMS or BSD 4.1.

The software consists of:

   MDS side:
      diagnostics
      DEBUG-432

   VAX side:
      CDS-432 Cross Development System:
         Ada-432 compiler
         LINK-432
         iMAX-432 operating system

AFAIK, the last customer release of CDS-432 was release 2.7, which
supported the release 3.2 chips. Intel continued development in house
in support of the Intel/Siemens joint venture (later commercially named
"BiiN"). There were release 3.3 chips, and probably software to support
them, but they were not available to customers.

I have not been able to obtain a complete copy of any release of
CDS-432 or iMAX-432, nor I have found the diagnostics or DEBUG-432.
I keep hoping that copies of this stuff will turn up eventually, but
things look pretty grim...
Received on Fri Jun 14 2002 - 18:49:43 BST