Groups | Search | Server Info | Keyboard shortcuts | Login | Register [http] [https] [nntp] [nntps]

Groups > comp.lang.forth > #34302 > unrolled thread

Novix NB4300

Back to article view | Back to comp.lang.forth

Contents

  Novix NB4300 dougatdoughq@gmail.com - 2014-11-03 20:39 -0800
    Novix NB4300 Mark Wills <markwills1970@gmail.com> - 2014-11-03 23:07 -0800
    Re: Novix NB4300 Paul E Bennett <Paul_E.Bennett@topmail.co.uk> - 2014-11-04 09:17 +0000
      Re: Novix NB4300 albert@spenarnc.xs4all.nl (Albert van der Horst) - 2014-11-07 15:12 +0000
        Re: Novix NB4300 JUERGEN <epldfpga@aol.com> - 2014-11-15 01:32 -0800
    Re: Novix NB4300 anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2014-11-04 12:30 +0000
      Re: Novix NB4300 Paul E Bennett <Paul_E.Bennett@topmail.co.uk> - 2014-11-04 13:23 +0000
        Re: Novix NB4300 anton@mips.complang.tuwien.ac.at (Anton Ertl) - 2014-11-04 13:40 +0000
    Novix NB4300 dwarman@davidwarman.net - 2014-11-04 05:52 -0800
    Re: Novix NB4300 Syd Rumpo <usenet@nononono.co.uk> - 2014-11-04 14:30 +0000
      Re: Novix NB4300 Syd Rumpo <usenet@nononono.co.uk> - 2014-11-04 16:19 +0000
    Re: Novix NB4300 albert@spenarnc.xs4all.nl (Albert van der Horst) - 2014-11-04 16:21 +0000
    Re: Novix NB4300 JUERGEN <epldfpga@aol.com> - 2014-11-07 06:08 -0800
      Re: Novix NB4300 Jan Coombs <Jan-54 <jenfhaomndgfwutc@murmic.plus.com>> - 2014-11-18 16:39 +0000

#34302 — Novix NB4300

Hi,

I went mad, and clicked the 'buy it now' button on ePay, and have a Novix NB4300 STD board being sent to me :-)  Ok - Not *that* mad, but just a little crazy.

In the late 80's, I worked at the Australian National University here in Canberra, Australia, where I helped work on a Novix Beta Board - And it was amazingly fast.  Blindingly fast.  So much so, that I copied the doco and the distribution media.

So - I have here the printouts of the Novix NC4000P Supplement, which documents the Beta Board, and some 40 track floppies - The job for the next couple of nights, is to grab the data off the floppies.

I am writing to the list, to see if anybody has doco for the STD bus board, the NB4300, or if I will be reverse engineering it.  From the photos, I see that it has serial on board, as well as the ram for the stack, the return stack, and the data ram, as well as a couple of narrow ePROMS.  I can't figure out how serial was implemented from the photo, but there is enough programmable logic that they *might* have implemented a SIO in a gate array because they were out of board real estate, but that's not likely.

What stuns me is that it looks like there there is *nothing* on the web about the board - almost a complete vaccuum - which is weird.

Anyway - hopefully somebody else here can help.

Doug

[toc] | [next] | [standalone]

#34303

I can't help unfortunately but if you do manage to get the docs off of your disks or get the docs via some other means then I'd be happy to host them on Forthfiles.net which is where I've archived some rare Forth docs. 

Regards

Mark

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]

#34304

dougatdoughq@gmail.com wrote:

> Hi,
> 
> I went mad, and clicked the 'buy it now' button on ePay, and have a Novix
> NB4300 STD board being sent to me :-)  Ok - Not *that* mad, but just a
> little crazy.
> 
> In the late 80's, I worked at the Australian National University here in
> Canberra, Australia, where I helped work on a Novix Beta Board - And it
> was amazingly fast.  Blindingly fast.  So much so, that I copied the doco
> and the distribution media.
> 
> So - I have here the printouts of the Novix NC4000P Supplement, which
> documents the Beta Board, and some 40 track floppies - The job for the
> next couple of nights, is to grab the data off the floppies.
> 
> I am writing to the list, to see if anybody has doco for the STD bus
> board, the NB4300, or if I will be reverse engineering it.  From the
> photos, I see that it has serial on board, as well as the ram for the
> stack, the return stack, and the data ram, as well as a couple of narrow
> ePROMS.  I can't figure out how serial was implemented from the photo, but
> there is enough programmable logic that they *might* have implemented a
> SIO in a gate array because they were out of board real estate, but that's
> not likely.
> 
> What stuns me is that it looks like there there is *nothing* on the web
> about the board - almost a complete vaccuum - which is weird.
> 
> Anyway - hopefully somebody else here can help.
> 
> Doug

One of the best documents that explains about the NC4000 chip is "Footsteps 
in an Empty Valley" by C. H. Ting (circa 1985). If I recall, the serial was 
a bit-banged interface which required a letter from the terminal to 
synchronise to the baud-rate you were using.

-- 
********************************************************************
Paul E. Bennett IEng MIET.....<email://Paul_E.Bennett@topmail.co.uk>
Forth based HIDECS Consultancy.............<http://www.hidecs.co.uk>
Mob: +44 (0)7811-639972
Tel: +44 (0)1235-510979
Going Forth Safely ..... EBA. www.electric-boat-association.org.uk..
********************************************************************

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]

#34346

In article <cbrjthFpg39U1@mid.individual.net>,
Paul E Bennett  <Paul_E.Bennett@topmail.co.uk> wrote:
>dougatdoughq@gmail.com wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> I went mad, and clicked the 'buy it now' button on ePay, and have a Novix
>> NB4300 STD board being sent to me :-)  Ok - Not *that* mad, but just a
>> little crazy.
>>
>> In the late 80's, I worked at the Australian National University here in
>> Canberra, Australia, where I helped work on a Novix Beta Board - And it
>> was amazingly fast.  Blindingly fast.  So much so, that I copied the doco
>> and the distribution media.
>>
>> So - I have here the printouts of the Novix NC4000P Supplement, which
>> documents the Beta Board, and some 40 track floppies - The job for the
>> next couple of nights, is to grab the data off the floppies.
>>
>> I am writing to the list, to see if anybody has doco for the STD bus
>> board, the NB4300, or if I will be reverse engineering it.  From the
>> photos, I see that it has serial on board, as well as the ram for the
>> stack, the return stack, and the data ram, as well as a couple of narrow
>> ePROMS.  I can't figure out how serial was implemented from the photo, but
>> there is enough programmable logic that they *might* have implemented a
>> SIO in a gate array because they were out of board real estate, but that's
>> not likely.
>>
>> What stuns me is that it looks like there there is *nothing* on the web
>> about the board - almost a complete vaccuum - which is weird.
>>
>> Anyway - hopefully somebody else here can help.
>>
>> Doug
>
>One of the best documents that explains about the NC4000 chip is "Footsteps
>in an Empty Valley" by C. H. Ting (circa 1985). If I recall, the serial was
>a bit-banged interface which required a letter from the terminal to
>synchronise to the baud-rate you were using.

Then there is "more on novix4000" a periodical. I've volume 3 in front of me.
Contributions from different authors in different fonts and layouts.
Hand drawn diagrams of a "Memory mapped A/D converters"
Ting's beautiful Chinese calligraphy (8 characters) of
  For knowledge , add a little everyday
  For wisdom, erase little everyday
(Chuck Moore got it framed.)
One guy with only a capitals-only-printer. Apparently Chuck Moore
owned a matrix printer that could do lower case.
His letters contains a mysterious ASCII art road map. He's inviting
the FIG party at COMPUTER COWBOYS 410 Star Hill Road (20 miles
mountain road).

Bill Muench was the only one who could do a proportional font on his
matrix printer. He used a fresh ribbon. If only the contributors to
our Dutch "vierde dimension" were that clever.


>Paul E. Bennett IEng MIET.....<email://Paul_E.Bennett@topmail.co.uk>
-- 
Albert van der Horst, UTRECHT,THE NETHERLANDS
Economic growth -- being exponential -- ultimately falters.
albert@spe&ar&c.xs4all.nl &=n http://home.hccnet.nl/a.w.m.van.der.horst

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]

#34418

On Friday, November 7, 2014 3:12:22 PM UTC, Albert van der Horst wrote:
> In article <cbrjthFpg39U1@mid.individual.net>,
> Paul E Bennett  <Paul_E.Bennett@topmail.co.uk> wrote:
> >dougatdoughq@gmail.com wrote:
> >
> >> Hi,
> >>
> >> I went mad, and clicked the 'buy it now' button on ePay, and have a Novix
> >> NB4300 STD board being sent to me :-)  Ok - Not *that* mad, but just a
> >> little crazy.
> >>
> >> In the late 80's, I worked at the Australian National University here in
> >> Canberra, Australia, where I helped work on a Novix Beta Board - And it
> >> was amazingly fast.  Blindingly fast.  So much so, that I copied the doco
> >> and the distribution media.
> >>
> >> So - I have here the printouts of the Novix NC4000P Supplement, which
> >> documents the Beta Board, and some 40 track floppies - The job for the
> >> next couple of nights, is to grab the data off the floppies.
> >>
> >> I am writing to the list, to see if anybody has doco for the STD bus
> >> board, the NB4300, or if I will be reverse engineering it.  From the
> >> photos, I see that it has serial on board, as well as the ram for the
> >> stack, the return stack, and the data ram, as well as a couple of narrow
> >> ePROMS.  I can't figure out how serial was implemented from the photo, but
> >> there is enough programmable logic that they *might* have implemented a
> >> SIO in a gate array because they were out of board real estate, but that's
> >> not likely.
> >>
> >> What stuns me is that it looks like there there is *nothing* on the web
> >> about the board - almost a complete vaccuum - which is weird.
> >>
> >> Anyway - hopefully somebody else here can help.
> >>
> >> Doug
> >
> >One of the best documents that explains about the NC4000 chip is "Footsteps
> >in an Empty Valley" by C. H. Ting (circa 1985). If I recall, the serial was
> >a bit-banged interface which required a letter from the terminal to
> >synchronise to the baud-rate you were using.
> 
> Then there is "more on novix4000" a periodical. I've volume 3 in front of me.
> Contributions from different authors in different fonts and layouts.
> Hand drawn diagrams of a "Memory mapped A/D converters"
> Ting's beautiful Chinese calligraphy (8 characters) of
>   For knowledge , add a little everyday
>   For wisdom, erase little everyday
> (Chuck Moore got it framed.)
> One guy with only a capitals-only-printer. Apparently Chuck Moore
> owned a matrix printer that could do lower case.
> His letters contains a mysterious ASCII art road map. He's inviting
> the FIG party at COMPUTER COWBOYS 410 Star Hill Road (20 miles
> mountain road).
> 
> Bill Muench was the only one who could do a proportional font on his
> matrix printer. He used a fresh ribbon. If only the contributors to
> our Dutch "vierde dimension" were that clever.
> 
> 
> >Paul E. Bennett IEng MIET.....<email://Paul_E.Bennett@topmail.co.uk>
> -- 
> Albert van der Horst, UTRECHT,THE NETHERLANDS
> Economic growth -- being exponential -- ultimately falters.
> albert@spe&ar&c.xs4all.nl &=n http://home.hccnet.nl/a.w.m.van.der.horst

Is there a Simulator of the Novix in Forth anywhere?

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]

#34305

dougatdoughq@gmail.com writes:
>What stuns me is that it looks like there there is *nothing* on the web abo=
>ut the board - almost a complete vaccuum - which is weird.

It's from before the web.  Almost nothing from that time is
represented on the web, unless it is of interest to history fans and
such.  Apparently the Novix has escaped the attention of the
retro-computing people; I guess the overlap of these two small niches
is too small.

- anton
-- 
M. Anton Ertl  http://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/anton/home.html
comp.lang.forth FAQs: http://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/forth/faq/toc.html
     New standard: http://www.forth200x.org/forth200x.html
   EuroForth 2014: http://www.euroforth.org/ef14/

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]

#34306

Anton Ertl wrote:

> dougatdoughq@gmail.com writes:
>>What stuns me is that it looks like there there is *nothing* on the web
>>abo= ut the board - almost a complete vaccuum - which is weird.
> 
> It's from before the web.  Almost nothing from that time is
> represented on the web, unless it is of interest to history fans and
> such.  Apparently the Novix has escaped the attention of the
> retro-computing people; I guess the overlap of these two small niches
> is too small.
> 
> - anton

I know that they didn't seem to produce more than an initial batch and I was 
asked to sell mine back so that a project could be completed with it. I 
though that the web was just beginning at the time Novix was coming out but 
Anton is probably right that not much was promoted that way in those early 
years.

Of course, the basic design of the Novix was used for the RTX2000 family 
that Harris produced. There is CPU-IP for the RTX series available which 
would be useful if you need that type of processor for anything (see MPE's 
web-site).

-- 
********************************************************************
Paul E. Bennett IEng MIET.....<email://Paul_E.Bennett@topmail.co.uk>
Forth based HIDECS Consultancy.............<http://www.hidecs.co.uk>
Mob: +44 (0)7811-639972
Tel: +44 (0)1235-510979
Going Forth Safely ..... EBA. www.electric-boat-association.org.uk..
********************************************************************

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]

#34307

Paul E Bennett <Paul_E.Bennett@topmail.co.uk> writes:
>Anton Ertl wrote:
>I 
>though that the web was just beginning at the time Novix was coming out but 
>Anton is probably right that not much was promoted that way in those early 
>years.

Publications about the Novix are from 1985-1987, and AFAIK Novix was
defunct when the RTX 2000 came out (data sheet from 1988).  The first
web server and web browser were developed in 1990, the first Mosaic
was available in 1993, Netscape in 1994, and IE in 1995.

- anton
-- 
M. Anton Ertl  http://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/anton/home.html
comp.lang.forth FAQs: http://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/forth/faq/toc.html
     New standard: http://www.forth200x.org/forth200x.html
   EuroForth 2014: http://www.euroforth.org/ef14/

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]

#34308

A close friend and tech partner of mine was involved in designing the Novix board. That was already over and done with when I met him in 1985, so seriousy predates the web. I'll ask him if he has anything stashed away.

re: stunningly fast - not only was the UART bit-banged in software, so was the video. Half the cycles were allocated to video, half to application code. The video was fast enough to run a demo wallpaper vector 3D image with real time ray tracing of (IIRC) Yosemite Valley and the Sun traversing the sky.

Commercially - it was too expensive, large, and power hungry, for the major commercial applications of the time, which were instrument control, telescope control, and satellites. And too different, not buzz-word compatible. RPN  style programming and Push-Down Automata (FORTH VM is a dual-stack PDA, formally, with little deviation from the theoretical Turing Machine derivation, and RPN was almost totally implicit in compiler theory) were not taught until M. Sc in CS in those days. Even though the HP calculators were all the rage.

-- David Warman

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]

#34309

On 04/11/2014 04:39, dougatdoughq@gmail.com wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I went mad, and clicked the 'buy it now' button on ePay, and have a Novix NB4300 STD board being sent to me :-)  Ok - Not *that* mad, but just a little crazy.
>
> In the late 80's, I worked at the Australian National University here in Canberra, Australia, where I helped work on a Novix Beta Board - And it was amazingly fast.  Blindingly fast.  So much so, that I copied the doco and the distribution media.
>
> So - I have here the printouts of the Novix NC4000P Supplement, which documents the Beta Board, and some 40 track floppies - The job for the next couple of nights, is to grab the data off the floppies.
>
> I am writing to the list, to see if anybody has doco for the STD bus board, the NB4300, or if I will be reverse engineering it.  From the photos, I see that it has serial on board, as well as the ram for the stack, the return stack, and the data ram, as well as a couple of narrow ePROMS.  I can't figure out how serial was implemented from the photo, but there is enough programmable logic that they *might* have implemented a SIO in a gate array because they were out of board real estate, but that's not likely.
>
> What stuns me is that it looks like there there is *nothing* on the web about the board - almost a complete vaccuum - which is weird.
>
> Anyway - hopefully somebody else here can help.
>
> Doug
>
I have copies of the three 'Electronics and Wireless World' Novix 
articles from early 1987, one of which describes the NX4 board which was 
available from Computer Solutions.

It's not an STD board, but if they're of any use, I could scan them.

Cheers
-- 
Syd

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]

#34310

On 04/11/2014 14:30, Syd Rumpo wrote:

<snip>
>>
> I have copies of the three 'Electronics and Wireless World' Novix
> articles from early 1987, one of which describes the NX4 board which was
> available from Computer Solutions.
>
> It's not an STD board, but if they're of any use, I could scan them.

I did anyway, they're quite interesting.

http://dropcanvas.com/gna1p

Cheers
-- 
Syd

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]

#34311

In article <69271012-da0b-49b8-acd5-d150f3b53f67@googlegroups.com>,
 <dougatdoughq@gmail.com> wrote:
>Hi,
>
>I went mad, and clicked the 'buy it now' button on ePay, and have a
>Novix NB4300 STD board being sent to me :-)  Ok - Not *that* mad, but
>just a little crazy.
>
>In the late 80's, I worked at the Australian National University here in
>Canberra, Australia, where I helped work on a Novix Beta Board - And it
>was amazingly fast.  Blindingly fast.  So much so, that I copied the
>doco and the distribution media.
>
>So - I have here the printouts of the Novix NC4000P Supplement, which
>documents the Beta Board, and some 40 track floppies - The job for the
>next couple of nights, is to grab the data off the floppies.
>
>I am writing to the list, to see if anybody has doco for the STD bus
>board, the NB4300, or if I will be reverse engineering it.  From the
>photos, I see that it has serial on board, as well as the ram for the
>stack, the return stack, and the data ram, as well as a couple of narrow
>ePROMS.  I can't figure out how serial was implemented from the photo,
>but there is enough programmable logic that they *might* have
>implemented a SIO in a gate array because they were out of board real
>estate, but that's not likely.

The Dutch Forth chapter has several boards on loan, with complete
documentation. I myself have one, with the documentation and a
pc with ISA bus to match. We also have an NX6000 which is so rare
apparently that it may be worth money, 200 years from now.

>
>What stuns me is that it looks like there there is *nothing* on the web
>about the board - almost a complete vaccuum - which is weird.
>
>Anyway - hopefully somebody else here can help.

I'm planning into the not too distant future to get real serious
about scanning a lot of things. My Brother 8860DN doesn't cut it,
it pauses for no reason before sending the next chunk of
 raw data over 100 Mhz line.
But for 2000 euro's Fujitsu has a marvelous two side scanner.

>Doug

Groetjes Albert
-- 
Albert van der Horst, UTRECHT,THE NETHERLANDS
Economic growth -- being exponential -- ultimately falters.
albert@spe&ar&c.xs4all.nl &=n http://home.hccnet.nl/a.w.m.van.der.horst

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]

#34345

On Tuesday, November 4, 2014 4:39:20 AM UTC, dougat...@gmail.com wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> I went mad, and clicked the 'buy it now' button on ePay, and have a Novix NB4300 STD board being sent to me :-)  Ok - Not *that* mad, but just a little crazy.
> 
> In the late 80's, I worked at the Australian National University here in Canberra, Australia, where I helped work on a Novix Beta Board - And it was amazingly fast.  Blindingly fast.  So much so, that I copied the doco and the distribution media.
> 
> So - I have here the printouts of the Novix NC4000P Supplement, which documents the Beta Board, and some 40 track floppies - The job for the next couple of nights, is to grab the data off the floppies.
> 
> I am writing to the list, to see if anybody has doco for the STD bus board, the NB4300, or if I will be reverse engineering it.  From the photos, I see that it has serial on board, as well as the ram for the stack, the return stack, and the data ram, as well as a couple of narrow ePROMS.  I can't figure out how serial was implemented from the photo, but there is enough programmable logic that they *might* have implemented a SIO in a gate array because they were out of board real estate, but that's not likely.
> 
> What stuns me is that it looks like there there is *nothing* on the web about the board - almost a complete vaccuum - which is weird.

> Anyway - hopefully somebody else here can help.
> 
> Doug

I would like to know if there is  either a simulated Novix out there ( in Forth probably ) or an implementation in VHDL. FPGAs are so cheap nowadays and the dev boards, so doing one should not be too difficult I assume.
Having the footsteps, the software but no chip is unfortunate. A simulator showing what is going on inside could solve it, where speed is no issue.

[toc] | [prev] | [next] | [standalone]

#34489

On Fri, 7 Nov 2014 06:08:35 -0800 (PST)
JUERGEN <epldfpga@aol.com> wrote:   . . .

> I would like to know if there is  either a simulated Novix out there ( in Forth probably ) or an implementation in VHDL. FPGAs are so cheap nowadays and the dev boards, so doing one should not be too difficult I assume.
> Having the footsteps, the software but no chip is unfortunate. A simulator showing what is going on inside could solve it, where speed is no issue.


I have executable models (simulators) for the J1 and B16.  These also export VHDL/Verilog for FPGA synthesis tools.  The J1 is more similar to the Novix.  Anyone want the J1 source and help to modify it to NC4016?  

Bernd's B16 is a much more conventional stack engine, and would be my first choice for play or project. 

Jan Coombs
-- 
email valid, else fix dots and hyphen
jan4clf2014@murrayhyphenmicroftdotcodotuk

[toc] | [prev] | [standalone]

Back to top | Article view | comp.lang.forth

csiph-web