4 ms·

I was actually looking into this last week. All original 68k CPUs appeared to be well beyond end of life and the only source appeared recycled chips from China.

by phire 6y ago

I was actually looking into this last week. All original 68k CPUs appeared to be well beyond end of life and the only source appeared recycled chips from China. But there are modern NXP coldfire parts. The CPU core is mostly binary compatible with 68k, just with some legacy instructions removed. Coldfire SOCs clock up to about 400mhz and have support for modern devices like ethernet and usb.

duskwuff 6y ago
You can still get new 68SEC000s from NXP, but the part is NRND (not recommended for new designs), so you'd better order soon if you're interested. Ironically, a HN comment I made about this a few years ago is now one of the top Google results for "68SEC000", ranking higher than NXP's own product page.
- phire 6y ago
  Oh right... I think I ran into your comment while researching. Mouser didn't appear to have any, so I decided it must have gone out of stock in the last few years. Though now I see digikey still have them. Are they actually still sold by NXP, or do digikey just have one last shipment sitting in a warehouse?
  - duskwuff 6y ago
    NXP doesn't sell direct to consumers. Their site doesn't list the part as discontinued, though, so I'd assume that NXP still have some stock of the part. (How old that stock is, on the other hand, is a good question. I wouldn't be surprised if it's many years old.)
- snvzz 6y ago
  It's a shame getting 68010s is not as easy. 68010 is IMO a bugfixed 68k, and what should have been used for any design that would otherwise target 68k, since the moment it became available.
  - fredoralive 6y ago
    Most of the bug fixes in the 68010 seem to be with things like virtual memory and virtualisation, which is only really important for things like PCs and workstations, and they moved onto the fully 32 bit 68020 and beyond when available. For things like embedded systems that continued to use the 68k, they don’t need the bug fixes, and the speed boost seems minor. I guess either the market didn’t see the need to change, or Motorola didn’t price it competitively enough to be a viable choice over the basic 68k.
    - snvzz 6y ago
      >and they moved onto the fully 32 bit 68020 and beyond when available. Sure, but that comes with 32bit bus baggage. The 68010 uses the same packages (dip included) as the 68k, and truly is a drop-in replacement with less bugs and slightly higher speed.
  - Teknoman117 6y ago
    I actually managed to find a seller on eBay from China who was selling real ones for like $1.50 a piece. They're used, of course, but it's not a rebadged 4 MHz 68000 that throws an exception when you try to change the VBR register.
    - snvzz 6y ago
      I got a few from ebay 1-2yr ago. They're not rebadged (at least the half I actually use).
      - Teknoman117 6y ago
        Ended up with rebadged ones at the beginning of the year. I didn't even know about the fakes situation at the time I purchased them. Was real careful the second time around. My side project is to make an MMU for it with an FPGA. The board doing the logic level shifting was my first custom PCB design!
        6y ago
einr 6y ago
For a real-world example of these CPU's being used in actual products today, I was doing some maintenance on a current-model GCC LaserPro Spirit laser engraver/cutter a while back and was a little surprised (and delighted, because it's just fun to see something that's not x86 or ARM in the wild once in a while) to find a ColdFire CPU on the motherboard. These are very popular machines used in production in all kinds of businesses.

by phire 6y ago

duskwuff 6y ago

You can still get new 68SEC000s from NXP, but the part is NRND (not recommended for new designs), so you'd better order soon if you're interested. Ironically, a HN comment I made about this a few years ago is now one of the top Google results for "68SEC000", ranking higher than NXP's own product page.

phire 6y ago
Oh right... I think I ran into your comment while researching. Mouser didn't appear to have any, so I decided it must have gone out of stock in the last few years. Though now I see digikey still have them. Are they actually still sold by NXP, or do digikey just have one last shipment sitting in a warehouse?
- duskwuff 6y ago
  NXP doesn't sell direct to consumers. Their site doesn't list the part as discontinued, though, so I'd assume that NXP still have some stock of the part. (How old that stock is, on the other hand, is a good question. I wouldn't be surprised if it's many years old.)
snvzz 6y ago
It's a shame getting 68010s is not as easy. 68010 is IMO a bugfixed 68k, and what should have been used for any design that would otherwise target 68k, since the moment it became available.
- fredoralive 6y ago
  Most of the bug fixes in the 68010 seem to be with things like virtual memory and virtualisation, which is only really important for things like PCs and workstations, and they moved onto the fully 32 bit 68020 and beyond when available. For things like embedded systems that continued to use the 68k, they don’t need the bug fixes, and the speed boost seems minor. I guess either the market didn’t see the need to change, or Motorola didn’t price it competitively enough to be a viable choice over the basic 68k.
  - snvzz 6y ago
    >and they moved onto the fully 32 bit 68020 and beyond when available. Sure, but that comes with 32bit bus baggage. The 68010 uses the same packages (dip included) as the 68k, and truly is a drop-in replacement with less bugs and slightly higher speed.
- Teknoman117 6y ago
  I actually managed to find a seller on eBay from China who was selling real ones for like $1.50 a piece. They're used, of course, but it's not a rebadged 4 MHz 68000 that throws an exception when you try to change the VBR register.
  - snvzz 6y ago
    I got a few from ebay 1-2yr ago. They're not rebadged (at least the half I actually use).
    - Teknoman117 6y ago
      Ended up with rebadged ones at the beginning of the year. I didn't even know about the fakes situation at the time I purchased them. Was real careful the second time around. My side project is to make an MMU for it with an FPGA. The board doing the logic level shifting was my first custom PCB design!
      - 6y ago

einr 6y ago

For a real-world example of these CPU's being used in actual products today, I was doing some maintenance on a current-model GCC LaserPro Spirit laser engraver/cutter a while back and was a little surprised (and delighted, because it's just fun to see something that's not x86 or ARM in the wild once in a while) to find a ColdFire CPU on the motherboard. These are very popular machines used in production in all kinds of businesses.