STEbus NS32016

Description

The goal: to capture and preserve for posterity a complete 32016 design.

Bought:

* NS32016D-10 CPU (plastic DIP48)
* NS32C201D-10 timing control unit (CMOS, CERDIP)
* NS32082D-10 MMU (CERDIP)
* NS32081D-15 floating point unit (CERDIP)
* NS32202 Interrupt controller (DIP40)

Done:

* Contact original designer

To do:

* Scan bottom layer (easy)
* Scan top layer (unpopulated board)
* Read PAL chips
* Analyse circuit

This project is awaiting more information.

Details

I contacted the original designer - Sebastian Jenkins - who said it brought back memories. He thinks he has the original design materials somewhere, never throwing out things like that, but will take some time to unearth them.

The PAL, TTL and memory chips should not be hard to get.

The chips are closely packed, suggesting the board might be four layer.

The NS32xxx chips are closely packed, and generated a lot of heat, needing heatsinks, which would obstruct boards plugging into the Internal bus connector.

Files

Acorn BBC BASIC for the NS32000 manual in html form.zip

BBC BASIC manual, in html form. Corrects some errors from the pdf version. Hyperlinked contents page so it is quick and easy to navigate.

Zip Archive - 18.30 kB - 03/02/2021 at 18:51

Download

NS32016.pdf

Central Processing Unit

Adobe Portable Document Format - 3.70 MB - 11/15/2020 at 21:42

Preview

NS32081.pdf

Floating Point Unit

Adobe Portable Document Format - 231.15 kB - 11/15/2020 at 21:42

Preview

NS32082.pdf

Memory Management Unit

Adobe Portable Document Format - 1.49 MB - 11/15/2020 at 21:42

Preview

NS32201.pdf

Timing Control Unit

Adobe Portable Document Format - 1.15 MB - 11/15/2020 at 21:42

Preview

Discussions

johninsd wrote 10/19/2019 at 19:36

Back in the 80s I worked with the NS32016 building a Fortran compiler for the chip. After leaving, I built my own NS32k system on the S-100 bus. It is mentioned at the site Thomas references: http://www.cpu-ns32k.net/John.html The major limitation in those days was the absence of EPROM to hold boot code. Consequently, the system had to have memory loaded from my Apple II. UGH!

Are you sure? yes | no

Keith wrote 10/20/2019 at 15:16

Impressive project. I would have to be very sure of a design's correctness before tackling it in TTL small scale logic. Wiring it once looks a huge task, never mind reworking it to fix bugs. Good to meet someone with experience of this CPU. Do you have circuits for it?

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johninsd wrote 10/20/2019 at 15:47

The schematics for this project were on yellow 8.5x11 notepad sheets, and I am not sure if I still have them. The wire lists for construction were derived from these schematics, but no longer exist. Recently, I have been looking at the NS32CG16 and NS32CG160 chips. The latter seem to be more readily available and at a very much lower price. BTW: I used the NS32202 on the RetroBrew Computers' "multi-function/PIC" board at: https://www.retrobrewcomputers.org/doku.php?id=boards:ecb:mf-pic:start. This board's main use is for the terminal communication (and interrupt handler) for the MC68008 "Mini-68K" and the MC68030 "KISS" board.

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Thomas wrote 10/20/2019 at 19:31

Ah, I remember making an "EPROM replacement" based on a HM6264 chip, and I build an Apple II clone from scratch (using a bare PCB from Taiwan, getting components was "beg, steal or borrow"). It ran UCSD Pascal, too The NS32016 was the stuff of "real computers", far out of reach!

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Thomas wrote 11/04/2018 at 22:23

Do you know this site?

http://www.cpu-ns32k.net/index.html

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Keith wrote 11/05/2018 at 22:06

Yes. Very impressive hoard of rare information. I'm inclined to borg it into my own just in case the website goes 404. After reading that website, I also bought a NS32CG16V-10 as it is higher integration and hopefully less wiring to make into a working system.

Are you sure? yes | no

Thomas wrote 11/06/2018 at 01:18

It also links to some other sites that contain source code archives, data sheets and other rare sources. Such information can disappear very quickly if there is no community that helps to fill the gaps. Unfortunately there is no "Library of Congress" for essential technical docs.

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STEbus NS32016

Description

Details

Files