Date   : Sun, 18 Sep 2011 17:00:29 +0100
From   : theo@... (Theo Markettos)
Subject: Weird ARM system

I was having a chat with one of my colleagues in his office (in the
Cambridge Computer Lab) the other day, and I noticed an interesting bit of
hardware on his shelf.  This was a card from Fairisle, which was the first
prototype ATM networking system from 1993.

What I noticed was an odd combination of chips... an ARM610 attached to a
MEMC and an IOC.  As well as the usual stuff (4x EPROMs, DRAM), and a bunch
of Xilinx FPGAs.  Apparently Richard Black did the system design for this.

Anyway, just thought I'd mention it as a peculiar early-ish ARM system.  Not
sure what would be going on in the memory architecture: ARM610 with full MMU
connected to MEMC also doing MMU stuff.  Maybe the MEMC was just doing DRAM
refresh, or the ARM610's MMU was turned off.  Whichever way, it's an
interesting example...

Theo