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Interesting stuff, I never knew Lisa and the OS used used a MMU! Re Xenix 68k hardware - there's also Tandy. From the Xenix Wikipedia article: "Tandy more than

Interesting stuff, I never knew Lisa and the OS used used a MMU! Re Xenix 68k hardware - there's also Tandy. From the Xenix Wikipedia article: "Tandy more than doubled the XENIX installed base when it made TRS-XENIX the default operating system for its TRS-80 Model 16 68000-based computer in early 1983" Apparently the TRS also had some unique extra chips, who knows if they may have been used for propping up memory management. (Z80 that apparently also worked as a kind of IO coprocessor, and some PAL chips mentioned in connection with Xenix[1]) [1] https://groups.google.com/g/comp.sys.tandy/c/HSTKgp_TbFg/m/pxQxaQ04DxQJ https://groups.google.com/g/comp.sys.tandy/c/HSTKgp_TbFg/m/p...

vidarh 5y ago
> Z80 that apparently also worked as a kind of IO coprocessor, and some PAL chips mentioned in connection with Xenix[1] A total digression, but I love the proliferation of CPUs for IO etc. on older systems. My worst-ever Franken-machine like that was my Amiga 2000. Right out of the box the A2000 had a 6502 compatible SOC as a keyboard controller (I don't remember the model number - might be a 6507). Then I got a SCSI controller that had a Z80 on it. And a bridge-board with an 8086 on it I think. I plugged a 286 accelerator into the bridge board, and a 68020 accelerator into the Amiga side... Not all of them were used at once, but having a machine with a 6502 compatible, a 68000, a 68020, and 8086, a 80286 and a Z-80 in the same case was fun... Of course the Commodore 128 had both a 8502 (6502/6510 compatible) and a Z80 (for CP/M) at the same time, and in CP/M mode the Z80 actually called 8502/6502 code for IO etc.... And of course for the C64, C128 and many others the floppy drive had a CPU as powerful as the actual machine (the C64 1541 floppy drive had a 6502, only marginally different (GPIO and some very minor other differences) to the 6510)

vidarh 5y ago

> Z80 that apparently also worked as a kind of IO coprocessor, and some PAL chips mentioned in connection with Xenix[1] A total digression, but I love the proliferation of CPUs for IO etc. on older systems. My worst-ever Franken-machine like that was my Amiga 2000. Right out of the box the A2000 had a 6502 compatible SOC as a keyboard controller (I don't remember the model number - might be a 6507). Then I got a SCSI controller that had a Z80 on it. And a bridge-board with an 8086 on it I think. I plugged a 286 accelerator into the bridge board, and a 68020 accelerator into the Amiga side... Not all of them were used at once, but having a machine with a 6502 compatible, a 68000, a 68020, and 8086, a 80286 and a Z-80 in the same case was fun... Of course the Commodore 128 had both a 8502 (6502/6510 compatible) and a Z80 (for CP/M) at the same time, and in CP/M mode the Z80 actually called 8502/6502 code for IO etc.... And of course for the C64, C128 and many others the floppy drive had a CPU as powerful as the actual machine (the C64 1541 floppy drive had a 6502, only marginally different (GPIO and some very minor other differences) to the 6510)