[TUHS] AT&T WE 321SB VME software or board user manual

[segaloco via TUHS]

On Monday, August 10th, 2026 at 00:08, Alan Hightower via TUHS <tuhs at tuhs.org> wrote:

> 
> I think ferretronics.com is Jeff Jonas' site.  I know he has a lot of
> WE32K and 3B2 documentation that is not scanned in.  Long ago, I offered
> to drive up to NJ and camp out in his drive-way for a week with a half
> dozen scanners.  But we never could sync up.  I'm going to ping him
> again to see if we can get his rare docs on-line.
> 
> That post on VCForums is the unit I bought.
> 
> -A
> 
> 
> On 2026-08-10 03:01, Kevin Bowling wrote:
> > http://ferretronix.com/tech/att_vme/ - the parent page shows he seems
> > to have the user manual (via
> > https://forum.vcfed.org/index.php?threads/vme-at-t-bits-from-my-clean-up-that-i-cannot-find-data-on.56033/)
> >
> > That is a rare bird, I would love to find one too.
> >
> 

+1 support for this scanning trip, I've also picked his brain about MAC-8 documents in the past.  One he has is a source listing of m8os, one of the two generic kernels BTL developed for the MAC-8.  I eagerly await the day I can sink my teeth into that one as the only extant, complete piece of MAC-8 software currently is the MAC-Tutor executive.

The source to one of the versions is in the preserved MAC-Tutor manual on bitsavers.  One of the two systems I have has an earlier issue, I think a prototype (the board is older than my Series 1 board by two years) so I intend to dump the ROM sometime this winter.  Luckily it has a TTY circuit onboard so I can just write a little machine code program on the keypad KIM-1-style and use that to dump it.  In fact, it also has a ZIF ROM socket so I may be able to apply it to dumping other WECo 28-type ROMs and equivalents...

Anywho, speaking of which I have a 5ESS peripheral card with a late MAC-8 (WE212E) on it and several ROMs I also mean to dump for more MAC-8 software specimens.  What I really hope surfaces someday though is the MAC-8 SGS.  I want to try my hand at synthesizing it from the 3B2 SGS but just haven't gone down that path yet.

Anywho, to bring it back around to UNIX, the 1978 BSTJ issue has a paper on UNIX as a MAC-8 development environment and then the more recent USG Library dump has a couple of papers on the WE32 design when it was still called the MAC-80.  Both are nice insights into the synergy between UNIX and BTL's microprocessor efforts.

I'll leave those of you interested in WECo silicon with this.  The BellMAC series of 4, 8, and 32-bit CPUs is coming to be more well studied through efforts of Alan, myself, etc. but recently I landed some Dimension 400 PBX technical documentation from BTL Denver which describes a potential 16-bit minicomputer ancestor, the "MC3 Processor":

> The processor is capable of sending and receiving a 16-bit data word.  Communication
> with all system units is via a 16-bit parallel 2-way data bus,
> a 16-bit parallel one-way address bus, and a 5-bit parallel one-way control bus.
> ...
> The processor comprises seven circuit packs (LC19, LC20, LC21,
> LC22, LC23, LC52, AND LC53) contained in the control carrier.

I'm still piecing through the manuals to try and find UNIX references, but intend to scan them eventually.  Either way, I have to wonder if 1. The MC3 has any DNA in common with the later 32-bit 3B-CC or earlier ESS CCs and/or whether BTL ever considered a microprocessor variant like the WE32 is to the 3B-CC/IS25 ISA.  The 1, 1A, and 3A ISAs are preserved, afaik, so one of these days I might just try and answer that for myself.  Too much on the plate right now though.  Here's hoping in a few years with luck some of us nerds are trying to port V7 to the then exposed and documented MC3...

- Matt G.