Unix History Diagram --- AOS quirks

[Pat Barron]

On Tue, 15 Dec 1998, User Rdkeys Robert D. Keys wrote:
> [...] The RT is a little bit
> non-standard.  I was thinking it was a 68000ish machine in IBM's
> wrappers, but others have said it was distinctly different from a
> 68000 based line.

No, the ROMP (the RT's CPU) is a RISC CPU.  I have a processor reference
for the C-ROMP (the CMOS version that was on the 6152 Academic
Workstation), but I only have hardcopy.

> Yes, there was an IBM'er that said he had some original tapes.  I was
> hoping he would check with someone at IBM to see what the status was.

That would probably be me.  I'm still looking - I have a call in right now
to someone who might be able to help.

> There was a group at Carnegie-Mellon that had some machines with AOS,
> but I don't have any pointers to anyone up there, for sure.

Best bet would probably be someone at the ITC or the CS department, or the
Andrew Consortium.  Don't really know many of those folks anymore, though,
and not sure if anyone from the right time period is still around.

> [...]  There was also some other machine
> called an ``Academic Machine'' that was a siamesed ROMP processor
> on a Model 60 PS/2 MCA bus machine.  I have not exactly understood
> how that thing actually worked, and noone on the net seems to have
> one, although there are two ROMP boards that are reputed to still
> exist that plug into the MCA Model 60 PS/2 box.  Apparently the
> Model 60 was the terminal/disk IO system and the ROMP board ran
> the BSD.

I have one in my living room....  Yes, your description is pretty much
correct.  The C-ROMP co-processor plugs into the Model 60 (though I don't 
know why it couldn't be used with another type of Microchannel PS/2). The
co-processor card has the C-ROMP CPU, support hardware, and memory.  To
IPL the thing, you run a DOS program on the PS/2 that loads the boot
program into the C-ROMP memory, and twiddles some bits that start the
processor.  The C-ROMP board pretty much takes over the machine, and uses
the PS/2 itself as an I/O processor.

--Pat.