Date   : Thu, 20 Oct 2005 01:19:23 +0100
From   : "David Hunt" <dm.hunt@...>
Subject: Re: Adding copro support to BeebEm

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Majordomo List Manager [mailto:majordomo@...] On Behalf Of
> Jules Richardson
> Sent: 19 October 2005 23:34
> To: bbc-micro@...
> Subject: Re: [BBC-Micro] Re: Adding copro support to BeebEm
> 
> Jonathan Graham Harston wrote:
> >>Message-ID: <435421E3.5060501@...>
> >
> >
> > Jules Richardson <julesrichardsonuk@...> wrote:
> >
> >>I notice that BeebEm has switchable Torch Z80 and Acorn 65C02 copro
> >
> > Any chance of it doing Acorn Z80 CoPro? I have 'C' and ARM source
> > code that can be used if needed.
> 
> I think the BeebEm author (one of them at least) is on this list so
> maybe they can comment. Hopefully the interface is all warm and fuzzy
> and well-defined, so dropping a new copro module in is easy, but knowing
> how software projects go that may well not be the case :-)
> 
> >>Incidentally, *somebody* was writing a 32016 CPU emulator a while back
> >>too (I can't remember the context now) - unfortunately I don't have the
> >
> > Me!
> 
> Funnily enough, the more I think about it the more I think it was
> someone over on a local Cambridge usenet group, so probably not you - so
> there's two of you out there!
> 
> > I've not done much on it, the documentation is tortuous, and
> > the opcode set even more so.
> 
> I take it you've found the proper CPU reference manual over on
> bitsavers.org (or elsewhere) - think it's about a 30MB download.
> 
> I'd heard that the instruction set was supposed to be rather elegant for
> the 32016 - but admit to knowing nothing of it myself!
> 
> > I've just now got the filetypes
> > allocated. I've done quite a bit of work on my PDP-11 CoProcessor
> > emulator, though. It boots up and will do I/O. See
> > http://mdfs.net/Apps/Emulators/Tube
> 
> That's rather cool! :)
> 
> cheers
> 
> Jules

It's been a long, long time since my Father sweated over writing code on the
Cambridge Co-Pro - he was writing something related to Oxford Uni., I asked
him what it was ages ago, he can't remember.

I've got the co-pro knocking around somewhere. There should be two, one with
1Mb of RAM for running code and a 4Mb one for debugging. 

I vaguely remember there was a user/supervisor mode like the 68000 and also
like the PDP-11, but it wasn't very fast. 

There was talk in Oxford of persuading Acorn to use the 32032 but I think
they had already decided to stop producing the Cambridge Co-Pro.

Did Acorn ever make the promised Master Scientific? That was around March
1986.

He also mentioned something about an FPU upgrade, I guess most modern OS's
take FPU support for granted, it would have made a significant improvement
to the jobs for which it was designed, e.g. mathematical/scientific.
 
Dave ;)