General Automation SPC-16/4x & HP PTP

From: David Comley <david_comley_at_yahoo.com>
Date: Mon Jun 30 08:50:00 2003

> I managed to pick up a General Automation SPC-16/40
> and SPC-16/45.
> Aparently, the /40 needs its power supply to be
> repaired :(.
Lucky you - I have been looking for an SPC-16 for some
time now. And there's precious little information on
the web. These were popular in Europe in the
industrial arena.

You may know all this already, but here's the little
bit I remember from using these systems. IIRC they are
16-bit systems; the systems I used ran RTOS booted
from 5- or 10-meg removable disk cartridges. At some
point I believe Tripos was also available. We used
these systems extensively at Ford Motor Company plants
across Europe as the controllers for engine
(dynamometer) testing, vehicle exhaust emission
analysis and electrical checkout. In fact I first came
to grips with assembly language programming on the
SPC-16. Back in the '70's someone at Ford wrote a
real-time executive for these systems called the Ford
Executive and Control Program which was only used at
run-time to support the test applications I was
writing, so development was interesting: I'd boot from
RTOS, edit and assemble my code; transfer to a
bootable 8" disk containing FECP; then reboot from the
diskette and attempt to test. Last time I used these
systems was in the late '80s, and at that time General
Automation was still in business. I don't think
they're around now.

Sorry that I don't have much more concrete information
on the hardware to share with - looking back over what
I wrote it's only personal experience stuff - but
sometimes a little context is useful on these systems.
I came across a reference to these machines in the
Technical Library at work recently, comparing them
performance-wise to other minis of the same era. If
you're interested I'll copy the relevant pages and
send them to you.

Regards,
Dave
Received on Mon Jun 30 2003 - 08:50:00 BST