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Motorola. Wish to create a Motorola specific Forum group.

I

inotarobot

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Joined
Feb 7, 2014
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Location
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Hello all,

I am interested in creating a new forum group under the 'genres area heading' for Motorola, specially for both Computers and Development systems.

Some what surprised that there is not already a specific group here, considering that Motorola was a very early pioneer in Computers.

What is necessary to create a group ?

What do other in VCF think of having a Motorola specific Group ?

My interest in forming such a group is, that the foundation and Core of my Vintage Computer collection is Motorola, as listed below.

Regards
David

===========================
My Motorola Computer bits collection as of Nov 2015
Motorola
MEK6800d2 the famous D2 Kit. I bought it NEW less than 6 months after its release. Still have it and it was expanded in the early 1980's by addition of the backplane MEK6800-AB 'Memory systems' Motherboard with 2 by 86 way edge connectors and 4 x 60 x 1 row 0.1pin connectors and the following 3 cards.
MEK68R2 'Memory systems' Programmable CRT Video interface with MC6821L ceramic
M68MM04A memory Micromodule 04a 1979
And an Analog Devices Brand A/D and D/A card (86 finger edge connector)

Exorcet MainBoard 6809 6809L Gold Plated CPU 1979 rare
Exorcet MainBoard 6809 6890 dated 3/10/83 Motorola GMBH

Microsystems Micromodule Card cage motherboard 10, slot 86 way

Exorciser bus cards
6809 CPU card Micromodule 17. 1981
MMS68104 static memory by 2
M68DIM2 Display interface module 2 1980
MEX68WW Wire Wrap modules. 1 blank, 5 populated by others; 1 is appears to be a WD drive interface cct, other 4 circuits are ??.

Prom Programmer III , 84DW6299X01 ISS M date 1979

ICU DS 14500B + I/O simulator

MC68000ECB Both in a system and a separate spare board.

Coldfire XCF5206FT25

mc68hc05 pgnr-2
M68340PFB Platform Board, with 2 daughter boards, dated 1990
MC68705P3S dev board called Picotutor. A UK Wireless Word article board Dec 1982

XC68LC040RC25B vme bus

WAFERS
6800
68000, 1980's VINTAGE CPU SILICON WAFER APPLE LISA MACINTOSH 4"/100mm

CHIPS
6800 ceramic and plastic packages
6805
6809 ceramic and plastic packages
MC68000L12 Vintage Motorola 64-Pin Gold Purple 68000
68020
14500 plastic

Heaps of Motorola logic chips in tubes, NOS and Pulled.
 
That's an impressive collection.

I view the Moto (and Freescale) products the same way I view products from Mostek, AMD, Intel or Zilog. The products mostly went into other vendors' products. There were development systems and kits, but you don't find categories for the manufacturers themselves.

Does that make sense?
 
Chuck(G) said:
That's an impressive collection.

I view the Moto (and Freescale) products the same way I view products from Mostek, AMD, Intel or Zilog. The products mostly went into other vendors' products. There were development systems and kits, but you don't find categories for the manufacturers themselves.

Does that make sense?
Click to expand...

Hi Chuck,

yes that makes sense.

However Motorola and Tektronix both made computer systems in their own right and marketed these globably.

I know the S100 bus has a far larger following, than say the Exorciser bus, due both to the diversity of manufactures, both hardware and software that jumped on the S100 wagon, BUT I do think it time Motorola have a forum group of their own. Both Intel and Ti were,are chip manufactures that others used in their equipment, yet both have a forum of there own here on VCF

Thank you for you kind word on my collection. I just did a post in the Collections Forum area on this site, giving an intro to me and the more complete list of my collection ( not just the Motorola part that I listed here).
regards
David
 
Interesting timing. I was just looking at a MEK6800D1 board today with some nice 1975 date chips on it. I've had that one for a while and I don't think I've ever gotten around to testing it yet.

I also have a couple of M68MM01A Monoboard Microcomputer boards. The M68MM01 manual is on Bitsavers but the M68MM01A board is slightly different and I haven't found a manual for those yet.

I got started looking at these again recently because I just picked up an HP 64672B 6800/6802 preprocessor interface for HP logic analyzers and attached it to a Heathkit ET-3400 to check it out and see if it works. That got me interesting in looking at other 6800 hardware.

-Glen
 
However Motorola and Tektronix both made computer systems in their own right and marketed these globably.
Click to expand...

And so did Intel. Zilog, AMD, and NS also made systems and marketed them globally. For example, did you know that the Zilog MCZ was used to create early closed-captioned material for TV (cf. WGBH foundation)? Not just that it "could be used"--it was the standard box used.

I think that the use of the 68K series was used by so many major manufacturers (Apple, Apollo...) that the number of systems made by vendors like Apple using Motorola products (or IBM in the case of the PowerPC) dwarfed the number of systems actually produced by Motorola by at least 2 orders or magnitude or more.

Even the lowly 6800 found huge distribution through the MCUs (e.g. 6801 or 6811) dwarfed any number of 6800 systems made. Back in the early 80s, I used a Moto ExorMACs system to do some development. 8" hard-sectored floppies, if memory serves--big cards in the box. But hardly anyone today remembers that.

I'm not against the Moto category; just that if we were to go with that, it would be appropriate to establish categories for the other MPU makers as well, no?
 
Capt. 2110 said:
Why not make a "Little Known Computers" section? It might work.
Click to expand...

Motorola is hardly "little known", but isn't that concept covered by "Other", anyway?

My two cents: when we have discussion of Motorola computers every week or every few days then it will probably be time to create a group for that.
 
Well, Motorola as a company aren't little known, but they aren't super well known for making computers. I think Other is fine, now that I think about it.
 
Chuck(G) said:
And so did Intel. Zilog, AMD, and NS also made systems and marketed them globally. For example, did you know that the Zilog MCZ was used to create early closed-captioned material for TV (cf. WGBH foundation)? Not just that it "could be used"--it was the standard box used.

I think that the use of the 68K series was used by so many major manufacturers (Apple, Apollo...) that the number of systems made by vendors like Apple using Motorola products (or IBM in the case of the PowerPC) dwarfed the number of systems actually produced by Motorola by at least 2 orders or magnitude or more.

Even the lowly 6800 found huge distribution through the MCUs (e.g. 6801 or 6811) dwarfed any number of 6800 systems made. Back in the early 80s, I used a Moto ExorMACs system to do some development. 8" hard-sectored floppies, if memory serves--big cards in the box. But hardly anyone today remembers that.

I'm not against the Moto category; just that if we were to go with that, it would be appropriate to establish categories for the other MPU makers as well, no?
Click to expand...

Hi Chuck,

Well I am also of the view that its sensible to thus create a categories for the other MPU makers, if we do one for Motorola.

However that probably should in fact expand out to to be contained in a whole NEW Forum subset called say "MPU Makers" off the Main Menu.

either that or we add a discussion group called say 'MPU Development systems' under "Generes"
 
Hi all,

All the comments by those contributing to this discussion have been appreciated and so far are valid.

I think maybe the point I am about, is we NEED a section for vintage "Computer Development systems", rather than them just be grouped in "others".

Ok I did suggest Motorola specific forum, but I concur that any discussions on a Motorola computer, made for general office or personal usage could or probably should be conducted under the "Others" group.

We have a dedicated section under Genres for S-100 computers, some of which were used as development, but many were just used as a computer.

Starting in the early 1970's when I was in my teens to when I aged into my 30's, about 75% of my activities using 'a Computer', was using development boards.

The rest of any "computing time' was simply using wordstar and like under cpm, then msdos and finally win3.1 etc

I still have many of the early 'Computer /MPU' development systems and tools, and continue to collect this area of Vintage computing; with a core focus on Motorola. That's not to say I don't have other makers Vintage Development tools.

To start discussing this type of computer hardware and to lesser extent the software that was with it, under the "others" heading would likely bore and eventually clog that group. And many that look under the 'others' heading would certainly have NO interest in reading posts on Development systems / kits.

So what do you think then on this point
 
inotarobot said:
I still have many of the early 'Computer /MPU' development systems and tools, and continue to collect this area of Vintage computing; with a core focus on Motorola. That's not to say I don't have other makers Vintage Development tools.

To start discussing this type of computer hardware and to lesser extent the software that was with it, under the "others" heading would likely bore and eventually clog that group. And many that look under the 'others' heading would certainly have NO interest in reading posts on Development systems / kits.

So what do you think then on this point
Click to expand...

What is boring is discussions about discussions.

Just start posting interesting information about the systems you have where it seems most appropriate. If anyone isn't interested in reading particular discussions they can easily ignore the threads. Just make sure you start a discussion thread with an useful title so people can easily tell whether or not they are interested in the content of a thread.
 
Hi

Ok point taken that people can ignore what they don't wish to read.

Major thought behind what I am proposing of a Vintage Computer MPU Development system forum thread, is this area of vintage computing is just that, a specific area that many using computers would have never delved into.

Lets group it in its own area, so those that would like to get into these 'tool', can just see all posts on them, without the need to ignore other posts or read the heading in hope someone has created a valid/useful title.

How hard is it to create a extra forum "computer development systems/kits" under genre category ??

Who makes that decision ? Is the Site Moderator ?
 
I'm just going to leave this here
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Last edited:
Hi InotaRobot,

Like you in 2015, I have a lot of MOTOROLA equipment, including a M68MM04A board.
Do you have the documentation for the M68MM04A? I only have the documentation for the M68MM04.

Thanks,
Marc
 
Development systems / In-Circuit emulators would be a great genre

I have dozen of them, and there really isn't any place that talks about them in detail.

A bunch of third parties made them, but they mostly dried up once microprocessors had direct debug hardware. The problem is chip makers did
a poor job of documenting the protocols (TI, Moto, et al.) so there are no open-source debuggers for their old parts.
 
marcopolo said:
Hi InotaRobot,

Like you in 2015, I have a lot of MOTOROLA equipment, including a M68MM04A board.
Do you have the documentation for the M68MM04A? I only have the documentation for the M68MM04.

Thanks,
Marc
Click to expand...
Marc, I have a copy of the M68MM04A Users manual (M68MM04A/D2, 1983) in my collection of Motorola micromodule docs. I’ll scan and post.
Stan
 
Al Kossow said:
How extensive is your documentation/software/hardware collection?

My 680x stuff on bitsavers is a bit disorganized right now. Went down a rathole recently with the Moto Display Products terminal stuff and the things built with it


I don't know how much the Flex et. al. people get into moto 86 pin bus cards.
Click to expand...
Al,
Pretty extensive hardware and associated docs ; Exorcisers, exordisk, controllers, micro-modules (most all of them), dev kits, docs and app notes. I can definitely help fill out your Motorola archive. I have several editions/revisions of many of the guides. I’ll put together an index and drop you a PM. Ive started dumping roms and photographing factory mods/pcb layout revisions to accompany the docs as I keep them running. Have other vendor exorciser compatible boards/docs as well I could contribute. Been using Exorciser stuff since the 70s.
 
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