21 Jan
2020
21 Jan
'20
12:34 a.m.
On 1/20/2020 1:09 PM, David Barto wrote:
My memory as well. A friend and I got ahold of the
complete set of chips
and started to build out the hardware for a Unix box. We got most of the
way there too, and then the odd quirks started showing up. We tracked
some of them to our layout and the others to the NS chips. Then we gave
it up as a “ah, it would have been nice if only” project.
A friend of mine and I
did the same, but with 68000. I wrote the
assembler and other utilities, he did the hardware design (although we
both took turns critiquing each other's work), and we both (and his
girlfriend) did the wire-wrapping.
We were eventually consumed by other real-life happenings, and it fell
by the wayside, but looking back at it now, UNIX would have been the
perfect choice. I did have visions of grandeur that I would write my own
OS for it - I'm sure I would have eventually learned my lesson ;)
art k.
PS: We cheated, and used static RAM. A few failed development projects
at my (then) current place of employment, and no one knew what to do
with "all these chips" that were left over. No problem, I know what to
do with them... they wound up in the trunk of my Triumph TR7