3002 Test Board

We have released a simple (its our least expensive board yet) Test Board for the Intel 3002 Bit-Slice Processor.  The Intel 3000 bit-slice processor family was introduced in 1973 and were made on a  Schottky Bipolar process. The 3002 series was also second sourced by Signetics, Siemens, and Intersil, and clones were made by the USSR and Tesla  (Czech).  The 3002 CPE is a 2-bit ALU and register file that can perform logical and arithmetic operations, left/right shifting and bit/zero value testing. The 3002 also includes 11 registers (R0-R9, T), an accumulator and a Memory Address Register (MAR). The 3002 CPE elements execute micro instructions generated by the 3001 Microprogram Controller Unit (MCU) based on micro code stored in PROM.
Its only $69.95 (including FREE shipping worldwide)

Order it on the 3002 test Board page.

In other related news, we are also developing a test board for some other BSP. Hopefully we’ll have a single board (with expansions) that can handle AMD 2901/03/203 and MMI 6701 processors

DSC Page Turn Processing Board. 6x 16bit ALUs – 1989

This board isn’t strictly a CPU but it is a processor of sorts.  I actually purchased this board as it was described as a DEC board, with not a great picture, having not seen a DEC board with LOGIC ALUs on it I bought it.  When it arrived I found it wasnt DEC at all but DSC, Digital Services Corporation.  DSC was a video effect company formed in the early 1980’s and later bought out by Chyron, one of the leaders of television video effects hardware.

In the 1980’s, effects on television were generally done in hardware, and required rather specialized hardware for each type of effect.  The most primitive were CG (Character Generators) that added captions typically to the lower third of the screen for a broadcast, like the name of the person speaking, etc.  As hardware capabilities increased, other effects could be generated, such as a video or image overlay, perspective changes or the page turn effect.

Logic L4C381GC-40 – 4x4bit ALU’s implemented in CMOS

These effects generally were handled by an effects processing system, with each effect having its own board in the system responsible for that effect.  Adding an effect required buying an effects board and installing it in the system.  This particular board from DSC handles the Page Turn Effect.  This is where one video transitions to another video with the look of a turning page.  It requires 3 inputs, the first video, the second video being turned to, and a typically solid color/image that represents the back of the page.  Here is a quick example on YouTube.  Today this can be handled by most any video editing software on a general purpose computer, but in 1989 there wasn’t a computer that could do this in near real time.

This board is built around 6 LOGIC L4C381GC-40/55 ALUs and 6x LOGIC LMU216JC-55 Multipliers.  The 4C381s are a 16-bit CMOS ALU, based on 4 74381 4-bit ALU,s a Carry Generator and interface logic.  Basically 1970’s technology updated to CMOS.  They handle 16 bit Addition, Subtraction and basic logic (XOR/OR/AND).  The LMU216s are 16 x 16-bit Parallel Multipliers.  They are the equivalent of the old AMD Am29516 that was cloned by TRW, Cypress and IDT.

LOGIC LMU216JC-55 – 16×16 CMOS Multiplier

The rest of the board consists of 6x64Kb or Video RAM, shift registers, and all the control logic (in PALs) to provide the instructions for the ALUs and multipliers.  The arrangement of the board suggests a 64-bit computation section and a 32-bit section.  Just as in the 1970’s the ALUs and multipliers have been used to make a custom processor, with a very specific instruction set and purpose and do so at a speed that would be compatible with broadcast television.  Sitting on one’s couch in the 1980’s watching TV and seeing a cool page turn effect one would think, ‘Hey that’s cool!’, yet have no idea that an entire processing system had to be designed, built and coded for that one second of television.

Russian Translation now available here by Vlad Brown

Often times its easier, and cheaper to break a big job down into smaller more manageable chunks.  The same goes for processing, and back in the 70’s and 80’s was fairly common.  ‘Wider’ processors were available, but were expensive and often not very flexible.  Bit slice processors were invented to fix this. a BSP is essentially an ALU (Arithmetic Logic Unit) that was 2 or 4 bits wide.  They could be put in parallel though to make processors of any width you needed.  intructions and control would then be fed to them by a control/sequencer chip.  Perhaps the most famous was the AMD 2901, a 4 bit slice device which is still in production today by companies like Innovasic.

Signetics 3002 BSP

Intel also made a BSP, called the 3002. It was 2-bit slice processor and was second sourced by Signetics, as well as Intersil. Released in September of 1974, it was clocked at 6MHz, very fast for the time, and another reason BSP’s were so popular. Above is a Signetics made 3002 in an all white ceramic package. Fairly unusual in that the lid is also white.