Date   : Thu, 20 Oct 2005 03:08:11 +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: 20 October 2005 01:53
> To: bbc-micro@...
> Subject: Re: [BBC-Micro] Re: Adding copro support to BeebEm
> 
> David Hunt wrote:
> > 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.
> 
> That's interesting. I've been digging up what 32016 copro history I can
> (easier said than done!) over the years, and this is the first time I've
> heard of any Oxford uni connection.
> 
> Leicester and Cambridge unis had them for courses / evaluation, along
> with 32016-equipped ABC 2xx (Cambridge workstation) machines.
> 
> Qudos also used the ABC 2xx - but other than that there were never
> really Acorn 32016 boards in the wild far as I know (although I can
> believe that a few escaped to various unis)
> 
> > 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.
> 
> Curious - photo of the 4MB board would be nice. The 4MB board for the
> Cambridge Workstation is huge and too big to fit in a BBC copro 'cheese
> wedge'. I've only seen 1MB boards in the cheese wedge, and 1MB boards
> also crop up in the Cambridge Workstation occasionally (same board).
> Never heard of a 4MB BBC 32016 copro though.
> 
> I'd *really* appreciate it if your father ever stumbles across a disk
> with his 32016 code on it btw - I'm trying to preserve anything I can
> related to Acorn's venturing into the 32016 world.
> 
> > I vaguely remember there was a user/supervisor mode like the 68000 and
> also
> > like the PDP-11, but it wasn't very fast.
> 
> Yeah, think I've heard that one before too (in relation to the
> Whitechapel, which was one of the few other machines to use the 32016)
> 
> > 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.
> 
> Wouldn't surprise me. I don't think I've seen serial numbers about about
> 130 for the 32016 beeb copro, or above 50 for the Cambridge Workstation;
> it was a bit of an evolutionary dead-end for Acorn (the BBC line was
> starting to show its age by then, and I guess ARM developments were
> already in the pipeline)
> 
> > Did Acorn ever make the promised Master Scientific? That was around
> March
> > 1986.
> 
> I'm 99% sure that's a no. Various online texts reference it, but I've
> never heard of a real machine, so I think it was always vapourware.
> 
> (the often-seen statement that Xenix was available for the ABC 2xx seems
> to be just a rumour too)
> 
> > 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.
> 
> For the 32016? The boards (1MB and the 4MB found in the ABC 2xx) do have
> a spare 40 pin socket on board; we were speculating what it was for over
> on classiccmp just the other week. MMU was one theory, or possibly a way
> of bringing the copro bus signals off-board.
> 
> Could you check the FPU aspect with your father? First time I've heard
> of that, but it'd sure make a lot of sense. Give him a poke to see if he
> kept any of his software too :-) (in around 30 boards I've never come
> across one which had that socket populated with anything)
> 
> Cambridge uni ditched their 32016 copros a short while ago incidentally.
> Qudos's ABC 2xx's ended up at a computer resellers in Sheffield years
> ago and from there went who knows where. It's possibly that Leicester's
> are still lurking in a cupboard there :-)
> 
> I need to get all this typed up and stuffed on the web when I get back
> to the UK - all the info's locked away in various email archives at the
> moment which isn't much use!
> 
> cheers
> 
> Jules

I have been thinking back to the old days and I recall a small daughter
board next to the CPU with a white ROM sized chip all covered with gold and
a bunch of logic chips surrounding it and also another 40 pin socket !?! 

The only reason I remember this is my Father picking the soldering iron up
bit first as he was so pre-occupied with soldering in this board. A volume
of colourful metaphors were generated at that point !!!!

I might have been looking at something else though!

I think the 4MB RAM was on the main board, I don't recall any expansion.
Perhaps the memory ICs were higher capacity, e.g. 44256 vs. 41256 ? (262,144
words of 4 bit vs. 262,144 words of 1 bit)

I think my Father's memory is about as reliable as the 32016 was. I'll ask
him at the w/e but I'm not hopeful!

Anyone know how much a Cambridge Co-Pro is worth ?

Dave ;)