Date   : Sat, 23 Oct 2010 17:46:13 +0100
From   : percy.p.person@... (Ed Spittles)
Subject: Reversing the Tube ULA (destructively)

Has anyone a tube chip (working or not) which could be depackaged and
photomicrographed so we can conjure up a transistor-level netlist and
a simulation of it?

Sacrificing a non-working one seems like a good first step - probably
that'll be fine for this purpose. Because the Tube is a ULA, we should
only need the metal pattern, but if it's packaged in plastic we will
need to get the acid out.

Ideally someone with a spare tube chip lives near enough someone with
a suitable microscope and someone with a suitable chemistry set!
Otherwise I can mail one to Greg James in California.

Even more ideally, someone already has some high-resolution photos of
the chip, or the original artwork...

(I'm a late joiner of the visual6502.org team which publishes a 6502
transistor-level netlist and much of the chip geometry as part of the
javascript simulation. The project is working through some Atari
support chips, but should be able to tackle any single-layer-metal
chip.)

Cheers
Ed