So what exactly were INS8060s used for?
 

It struck me the other day that apart from microprocessor teaching aids and early home computers I’ve not come across any commercial product that advertised “8060 inside”. I assume there was a good up-take back in the day and it would appear that many 8060s on sale now are pulls from equipment. Does any one have any concrete examples of early usage?

Re: So what exactly were INS8060s used for?
 

Lifts - or 'elevators' as they're known in the SC/MP's native land. It's said that many are still operating in old apartment blocks, hotels & hospitals...

Re: So what exactly were INS8060s used for?
 

Well if they were used in Lifts/Elevators, then maybe just about qualifies as a Commercial product, but not a consumer product or something many service-engineers would have seen inside. Unlike the Intel 4004, that at least made it into an electronic calculator (even if it did cost rather a lot) etc.

Co-incidentally (whilst recently commenting on an email to Chris Oddy about the current price of surplus INS8060's - that are now only a couple of pounds more at Littlediode than from China etc on online auction sites), I'd written this:


According to this, there was an INS8070 SC/MP-3: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation...onductor_SC/MP
But that may be even rarer than the previous versions, which never seemed to have got used in much other than quite low-volume UK Computer kits
(Has anyone used an SC/MP-3? - Particularly to substitute an SC/MP-I/II)

It seems that most National Semiconductor uP's were comparatively unsuccessful (compared to 808x / 68xx / 65xx etc. ones), with their NS32016 only seemingly mainly-used as a relatively-rare '32016' Co-Processor for Acorn's 6502 BBC etc computers.
Although I believe their COP8 etc uC's did get a bit more commercial use.
And I think they were also a second-source supplier for Intel etc ones, with the INS8080?

Re: So what exactly were INS8060s used for?
 

INS8070 has been discussed here a few times Owen, its the ROM-less version of the better-known 8073 which has National Tiny Basic on board. It has lots of benefits over the SC/MP I & II including hardware multiply/divide, a proper stack, true 64k addressing, plus on-board ram & rom. It cant really substitute a SC/MP I or II as the hardware is fundamentally different - no address latch etc
Few and far between!
Cheers
Phil

Re: So what exactly were INS8060s used for?
 

It always seems to me that the wiki page was not written by someone that has any experience with the 8060. I don’t know where they get the idea that special instructions are used to access the upper four bits of the pc or that programs cannot access data outside their own page. Also when clocked at 4 MHz it only runs at 1 us per microcycle.

The only references I have seen to using a single bit ALU seem to be copied from this wiki entry. Does anyone have any information from a credible source that this is correct? It doesn’t seem to fit the instruction cycle count in the datasheet. It seems more likely that the slow instruction execution speed is due to a simple microprogram sequencer and the internal use of transparent latches rather than edge triggered registers.

I have had a bit of a play with the INS8073, the variant of the 8070 with NIBL in 2.5k rom. I wasn’t able to find INS8070 at a reasonable price, now it seems they are just not available. Unfortunately the INS8073 doesn’t have a method to disable the internal rom though it can call machine code programs in external memory. It’s not machine code compatible with the 8060 and has a 16 bit address bus, doesn’t have NADS, CONT, SIN or SOUT.

I think there was also an INS8075 version with NIBL in a larger rom, but haven’t been able to find any of those either.

Re: So what exactly were INS8060s used for?
 

National seem to refer to the 8073 rom as "National Tiny Basic" from which I've always assumed its not NIBL, I have a vague recollection of comparing the two some years ago but cant remember the outcome, I'm being lazy as I have National TB datasheet somewhere... :)
NIBL is 4k so wouldnt fit, and National refer to the Tiny Basic as "extended" to 2.5k which again makes me think they are different...
Cheers
Phil

Re: So what exactly were INS8060s used for?
 

It would have to be rewritten to run with the INS8070 instruction set. I’d assumed it was reduced from 4k to 2.5k due to the improved instruction set of the INS8070.

Re: So what exactly were INS8060s used for?
 

When I started here at work there was an ancient GP4000 device programmer which was not being used even at that point.

When the GP4000 was discarded I intercepted it and discovered that it was based around an SC/MP II and INS8154 and so I salvaged those, along with the 8V toroidal transformer which has powered my original MK14 since I rebuilt its power supply around 2010.

The SC/MP and 8154 from the GP4000 are now in my issue VI MK14 replica.

Re: So what exactly were INS8060s used for?
 

You could always make the necessary edits yourself, for the good of all mankind, etc.

Re: So what exactly were INS8060s used for?
 

I was going to mention the GP4000 programmer as I have one still working along with the 8 way gang programmer (copies one master device into 8 blank EPROMs) which also contains an INS8060 and a pair of INS8154s. I suspect, alas, that if such devices turn up they will be raided for those chips which is a pity as the working units are as least as significant as the MK14.

I've also seen this processor in a cash register and in a data logger tape drive unit.

Re: So what exactly were INS8060s used for?
 

I feel very bad now about breaking up the SC/MP based GP4000, probably my worst ever act of electronic vandalism but at the time it was just an older, less capable programmer than the several other newer ones we had at the time, this was nearly 20 years ago. At that time INS8060s and INS8154s were probably quite readily and cheaply available.

Its replacement (A Needhams EMP20) is about to be retired as well but that will be finding a safe home with me, as it can do Hitachi-brand 2532 EPROMs and a few other exotic devices which my main mid-90s programmer can't.

Re: So what exactly were INS8060s used for?
 

Incidentally, Karen Orton posed a very similar question in 2019:

https://www.vintage-radio.net/forum/...d.php?t=155295

Re: So what exactly were INS8060s used for?
 

An Italian company produced 3 or 4 pinball machines with an "8060 board.
I don"t have access to any of my pictures archive at present.

Re: So what exactly were INS8060s used for?
 

I found but have lost a reference that someone was discussing they had Nat Semi make them SC/MP's for some industrial machine controller they were building as late as 1985. There was also an oblique reference to the fact they were used widely in Holland as controllers for Greenhouses.

Pity poor Bruce in the year 2000 who had to keep supporting their use in elevators after Nat Semi dropped them finally...

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!se...s/nOv88p-GpOkJ

The SC/MP in dual form was used by CPU (Steve Furber and Sophie Wilson) for slot machine designs (Ace Coin) before they got under way with the System 1 and Acorn story.

REF: http://speleotrove.com/acorn/acornHistory.html

In Cardiff Wales there was a company making machines called Gowerpoint. Their machines were all SC/MP based.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuDt7H1Fb0k

If you watch the video then you can see the LCDS in the background and the guy is holding up an SC/MP - I also attach a still from it where you can see this and a picture of one of the boards supplied by my friend Ian who worked there!

Attachment 271790Attachment 271791

Re: So what exactly were INS8060s used for?
 

There's a very good list of Elektor articles, you'd found there.
- Co-incidentally, I'd recently gone through my collection of paper copies from that period, after Chris had been looking for a couple of SC/MP Elbug articles (he later found the full magazines online, without having to pay a lot to just get the article, if not a Gold subscriber I used to be, from Elektor's website). And I was surprised how much Elektor had featured the SC/MP, seemingly have many different PCB designs for it in following issues (Although putting the SC/MP by itself on a custom PCB, then just linking it with wires to another board - as shown on cover-photo of one issue, seemed rather odd)

And I think that thread just about covered the main use we'd seen in the UK, with the company behind those GP4000 programmers originally being linked to Barry Savage's Dataman designs of the Softy & TOLINKA Chess computer.
As Maplin sold the Softy-2 (the last Softy to use the SC/MP. before they moved to a different processor on the rather different S3 unit that cost a lot more and Maplin never sold), you'd expect those would have been quite popular - But we're still trying to get hold of the full schematic (and a dump of the firmware) for it, after a member on here posted he'd acquired a couple.

But in terms of things not designed as tools for Hobbyists / Engineers, there doesn't really seem to be too much in the UK at least, that was a significant user of it. I presume the TOLINKA chess display computer wasn't produced in that high a number.

I expect the 4bit Texas Instruments TMS1000 uC (apparently the world's most sold uP/uC at one point), was rather lower cost (in mass-production, once cost of programming-mask had been paid), so was much more widely encountered in many toys etc of the early 80's
And maybe similar for the General Instruments Mask-programmed PIC's, being used in Washing machines etc, before Microchip acquired them and produced user programmable & also eraseable versions.

Re: So what exactly were INS8060s used for?
 

Michael Haardt is your man for Elbug wisdom, he's shared a lot of his work here on the forum: https://www.vintage-radio.net/forum/...earchid=328007 :)

Re: So what exactly were INS8060s used for?
 

Thanks for the info. Unfortunately that link doesn't seem to work, so there might be a typo / digit missing from the thread no. Searching on his name and Elbug only found these, rather different, fairly-recent thread no's:

Elbug 2 source: https://www.vintage-radio.net/forum/....php?p=1510149
HEXIO compatible to Elektor SC/MP system: https://www.vintage-radio.net/forum/....php?p=1484722
New SC/MP II system: https://www.vintage-radio.net/forum/....php?p=1371027
Source code for NIBL recovered: https://www.vintage-radio.net/forum/...d.php?t=190474
More SC/MP documentation: https://www.vintage-radio.net/forum/....php?p=1471687

Re: So what exactly were INS8060s used for?
 

Here's a great site for the GP4000 and P4000. Photos of the PCBs, ROM images, even hand drawn schematics. Matthieu Benoit's site has lot of info on vintage computing, parts, programmers, etc. Well worth a look.

Re: So what exactly were INS8060s used for?
 

The '4000' unit I scrapped all those years had a blue VFD display rather than LEDs but was otherwise very similar. I salvaged the keyswitches as well, complete with their key legends, so if anyone ever acquires one with missing or broken keys let me know.

Matthieu's site is always my first port of call when it comes to anything old-EPROM-programmer related.

Re: So what exactly were INS8060s used for?
 

You do realise who traced out those schematics, I trust....:) And I rather recognise the workbench where those photos were taken too....