Original 68030 Prototype pics

[Zippy]

Thought some may find this interesting...

https://retrocomputingforum.com/t/68030 ... f-ttl/1387

Direct link to the pics:
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... J2v2n0UO8J

[ragnar76]

Oh... Wow... Nice Pics

[wongck]

Interesting that the CPU began as huge breadboard

[PeterS]

When you look back at how they had to develop things it's amazing that it ever worked.

Some of the software I was working on 30 odd years ago was a bit like that.

Ps. What is the massive machine in the last photo with the twin 5 1/4 floppy drives ?

[ragnar76]

Quick google (68030 hardware emulator): I've stumbled over this: http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/hp/64120/6 ... eb1990.pdf . See Page 18. It says "Periphial Package". Not sure what is is but its funny that the figue show thw same plate right beside the keyboard

[mlynn1974]

Interesting that the CPU began as huge breadboard

Yes. That seems to have been the way to do things back then. I remember the Crash magazine issue where they had the SAM Coupe prototype and its ASIC was designed on a a very large breadboard. It was shrunk down nicely in the final machine!

In 1999/2000 I was working for a company that made provisioning software for the Nortel DMS 100 switch (now obsolete) and it used a 68020. The testing was done I believe on an emulator according to the head of testing so that would be the functionality of the switch and its core 68020. So commercial companies had a 68020 emulator then and probably had done so for at least 10 years.

[Zippy]

In a way it was similar to how they made mini computers before the time of the microprocessor. With the CPU split onto multiple boards, the ALU, instruction decoder, registers etc, all on separate boards connected by ribbon cables like that.

[wongck]

When I was at school I remember building a digital circuit with breadboard and wire wrapping the final design (yes, i am that old). It was a dog to debug when a wire was not connecting.... now compare that to the 68030 CPU... WOW! hats off to those guys.

[ijor]

Interesting. Thanks for links, Zippy.

When you look back at how they had to develop things it's amazing that it ever worked.

Well, while using a breadboard could be considered very primitive in comparison to modern chip development, it is really very sophisticated when you compare with how something like the 68000 was developed (let alone earlier 8-bit CPUs).

There is an article from one of the main engineers that worked on the 68000. Not only that they didn't have a breadboard, they barely used computers for the development. The microcode was developed using manually written cards !

[PeterS]

Interesting. Thanks for links, Zippy.

When you look back at how they had to develop things it's amazing that it ever worked.

There is an article from one of the main engineers that worked on the 68000. Not only that they didn't have a breadboard, they barely used computers for the development. The microcode was developed using manually written cards !

I joined a major organisation in 1991 that has only stopped using punch cards and paper tape a few years before.

[prog99]

Interesting. Thanks for links, Zippy.

When you look back at how they had to develop things it's amazing that it ever worked.

There is an article from one of the main engineers that worked on the 68000. Not only that they didn't have a breadboard, they barely used computers for the development. The microcode was developed using manually written cards !

I joined a major organisation in 1991 that has only stopped using punch cards and paper tape a few years before.

Our year in college (1988) were the 1st to not have to submit coding sheets for manual input to the prime minicomputer.

[PeterS]

We used coding sheets at school in 1980, they went to Preston poly to run on their Pr1me.

[Zippy]

Related:
"Members of the management, design, manufacturing, and marketing teams responsible for Motorola's 68000 family of microprocessors and peripheral products discuss the evolution of their activities from the 1970s through the 1990s"

https://www.computerhistory.org/collect ... /102658164

54 page doc on the development of the 68000.

[Cyprian]

https://www.computerhistory.org/collect ... /102658164

great discussion about birth of 68000

[ijor]

Related:
"Members of the management, design, manufacturing, and marketing teams responsible for Motorola's 68000 family of microprocessors and peripheral products discuss the evolution of their activities from the 1970s through the 1990s"
https://www.computerhistory.org/collect ... /102658164
54 page doc on the development of the 68000.

Fascinating doc on the 68K development, that I read it long ago, but I forgot Thanks again, Zippy

But please note that when people describes the details about something they performed decades ago, many times they tend to forget things or remember wrong. In this case I read this article years ago and I remember finding several mistakes. And that's only for those issues that I know and could detect the mistake. Probably there are other mistakes that I simply don't know.