Subject: RE: NuVAX revisited
To: Chuck McManis <cmcmanis@mcmanis.com>
From: Dave McGuire <mcguire@neurotica.com>
List: port-vax
Date: 06/27/2001 19:26:32
On June 27, Chuck McManis wrote:
> >Fifth, and last - build a chip for QBUS interface.
...
> Well what you have described is basically the KA640 processor from DEC.
> With some differences. It has a single chip VAX (CVAX) and 4MB of memory on
> board, it has an ethernet interface (SGEC) and a chip that understands SCSI
> (SII) that is actually talking to a DSSI bus. Further is has a Qbus
> interface that talks to the card "fingers."
One of the 3rd-party peripheral manufacturers had a custom chip that,
from their marketing literature, they seemed VERY proud of...I believe
they called it a QBIC (QBus Interface Chip), and I think the company
was either Dilog or Emulex. I think it was Dilog.
Anyway...I wonder if it would be possible to obtain the design of
that chip from whoever "owns" it now. Getting stuff out of [what's
left of] Dilog, for example, might be easier than getting stuff
released from [what's left of] DEC.
If we could use their design at the gate level, re-implementing it
in VHDL and blowing it into FPGAs...I think that'd be a real win.
-Dave McGuire