Have you guys had a look at the "MC68040 Designer's Handbook" from Motorola? Section 7 is "MC68040 to MC68020/MC68030 Bus Adapter Design", with designs for the various PAL chips needed to create an adapter. I wonder if Daystar's and the other designs aren't completely based off of this Motorola design.
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Carrera040 Info / Hacking Thread
- Thread starter joethezombie
- Start date
Trash80toHP_Mini
NIGHT STALKER
That makes a world of sense. I wonder if there's similar MC68030 to MC68020/MC68000 cribbage in the earlier docs? That is one monster PDF scroll of Greek to me.
Trash80toHP_Mini
NIGHT STALKER
RATS! The MC68030 User Manual has that kind of info on adaptations required for retrofitting a 68020 design with a 68030, but there doesn't seem to be anything like that in the MC68020 manual for retrofitting an MC68000 design. 
nickpunt
Well-known member
Interesting note here, discovered a super old usenet thread from Jan 1993 discussing the impending launch of the Mobius Speedster 040 (aka Carrera 040 afaik) and at launch it was going to be for the SE/30.
That site has a lot of related links of other usenet threads that are surprisingly relevant. There's probably more gems in there.
Interesting that this product seems to have changed hands several times - Mobius, Galaxy Hardware Publishers, Sonnet (Jun 1995), and Micromac.
trag - funny you mention the Designers Handbook, as someone in 1991 was trying to build their own accelerator and mentioned it -
Later in Apr 1993 someone else was inquiring about it in the SE/30
And if you want to know the person who made the control panel software, here he is:
That site has a lot of related links of other usenet threads that are surprisingly relevant. There's probably more gems in there.
Interesting that this product seems to have changed hands several times - Mobius, Galaxy Hardware Publishers, Sonnet (Jun 1995), and Micromac.
trag - funny you mention the Designers Handbook, as someone in 1991 was trying to build their own accelerator and mentioned it -
This is probably all old news to everyone, but posting here in case there's some relevance.
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Trash80toHP_Mini
NIGHT STALKER
Fabulous research, nick!
Someone needs to scour the MacWorld and MacUser archive to follow up on mentions of SE/30 support. Your newsgroup research turned up a detailed pic of another accelerator in a specific MacWorld issue that I'll definitely be looking up myself when/if I can find the time to go through that pile of .TXT again before someone else posts the pic.
Just how many brand names has this puppy shown up under in its long and sordid history? There's a list in there somewhere?
Checking advertiser indices on either side that date for those Mobius/?/??Carrera mfrs. Model Designations in ads might be fruitful. The mail order houses had some fab pics if the mfr. ads come up empty. They're a bountiful source of all kinds of research material.
Magazine archive research just might turn up a pic of an SE/30 adapter one of the companies came up with for Mobius/Carrera/Whatever. Whether such a mythical beast had GAL adaptation on board or not as opposed to joe's passive IIsi adapter would be the answer to one very important question about this endeavor.
Someone needs to scour the MacWorld and MacUser archive to follow up on mentions of SE/30 support. Your newsgroup research turned up a detailed pic of another accelerator in a specific MacWorld issue that I'll definitely be looking up myself when/if I can find the time to go through that pile of .TXT again before someone else posts the pic.
Just how many brand names has this puppy shown up under in its long and sordid history? There's a list in there somewhere?
Checking advertiser indices on either side that date for those Mobius/?/??Carrera mfrs. Model Designations in ads might be fruitful. The mail order houses had some fab pics if the mfr. ads come up empty. They're a bountiful source of all kinds of research material.
Magazine archive research just might turn up a pic of an SE/30 adapter one of the companies came up with for Mobius/Carrera/Whatever. Whether such a mythical beast had GAL adaptation on board or not as opposed to joe's passive IIsi adapter would be the answer to one very important question about this endeavor.
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Trash80toHP_Mini
NIGHT STALKER
"Magellan" is likely a MacZone trade name for this Accelerator. I see two unimplemented connectors (for various machine PDS adapters? How backwards is that universality!?!) with beaucoups GAL support in the maximum spec. SE/30 expansion form factor. 040 Accelerator for IIfx!?!
Now if someone can come up with a pic of a Carrera SE/30 Adapter we could be in business.
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The historical information is always interesting, Nick.
I'm not going in the attic any time soon to check, but the assortment of chips in the Motorola design tracks my memory pretty well for the pre-ASIC Daystar Turbo040.
The big difference being that the Motorola deisgn uses a clock generator that drives the 68040 and adapter card at the same speed as the host, whereas the Daystar designs seem to have some method of making the 68040 speed independent of the host speed.
As far as the software component to the adapter, I assume that is in the Flash chip that is onboard the 68040 upgrades. The Motorola document states that if one puts an EPROM on the adapter card, the necessary software can live there. It's true that there doesn't seem to be any kind of software listing anywhere though. It's probably too dependent on the OS running on the host system.
There's so much detail about how the signals are being adapted, that I suspect that if one developed a detailed understanding of the adapter, the necessary software would become fairly obvious, given an understanding of the host system's OS.
ABEL is an old hardware description language for programmable logic. It seems to have existed somewhere between PALASM (PAL Assembly) and VHDL (mumble Hardware Description Language). Took a bit of sleuthing to match the Motorola code listings to ABEL though, as I was not previously aware of the language. I was reading the code and thinking, "This looks a bit like VHDL, but doesn't seem quite right...."
Anyone have the 68040 Technical Summary? Basically the datasheet for the 68040. The User Manual is all over the place (MC68040UM.pdf), but the Technical Summary/Datasheet seems to be unobtainium (MC68040D.pdf).
I had never seen the Designer's Handbook and had no idea it existed before a couple of days ago. I wish I had grabbed all the 68K relevant Application Notes back when. There's one on interfacing the DP83932 to the 68030 for ethernet, "32-Bit Bus Master Ethernet Interface for the 68030 (Using the Macintosh SE/30)". That's actually a National Semi AN (they made the DP83932). National Semiconductor AN691.
And for jt, "Replacment of MC68000 Processor with MC68020 or MC68030 with Coprocessor Option for MC68881 and MC68882: MACH110" by Christoph Niessen. And Advanced Micro Devices note, apparently. I'm not sure what their angle was, but I haven't read the note.
Also attaching the 68030 Technical Summary as an example. I have not been able to find the corresponding 68040 document, but it should look like that, except everywhere it says 68030, it should say 68040.
Oh, I forgot, yeah, there's something wrong with that AMD application note on replacing the 68000 with the 68020 or 68030. It starts out in English, for the summary, and then switched to German. And the code listing (in ABEL again) appears to be localized to German. Do we have any German speaking members?
View attachment Replacement_of_MC68000_with_MC68020_or_MC68030_[AMD_1993_18p].pdf
View attachment HDL-ABEL Primer.pdf
View attachment ABEL-HDLReferenceManual.PDF
View attachment abel_sample_code.pdf
View attachment MC68040_Designers_Handbook_[Motorola_1990_256p].pdf
View attachment AN691_32-Bit_Bus_Master_Ethernet_Interface_for_the_68030_(Using_the_Macintosh_SE30)_[NS_1995_1...pdf
View attachment MC68030_Technical_Summary_[Motorola__1991_52p].pdf
I'm not going in the attic any time soon to check, but the assortment of chips in the Motorola design tracks my memory pretty well for the pre-ASIC Daystar Turbo040.
The big difference being that the Motorola deisgn uses a clock generator that drives the 68040 and adapter card at the same speed as the host, whereas the Daystar designs seem to have some method of making the 68040 speed independent of the host speed.
As far as the software component to the adapter, I assume that is in the Flash chip that is onboard the 68040 upgrades. The Motorola document states that if one puts an EPROM on the adapter card, the necessary software can live there. It's true that there doesn't seem to be any kind of software listing anywhere though. It's probably too dependent on the OS running on the host system.
There's so much detail about how the signals are being adapted, that I suspect that if one developed a detailed understanding of the adapter, the necessary software would become fairly obvious, given an understanding of the host system's OS.
ABEL is an old hardware description language for programmable logic. It seems to have existed somewhere between PALASM (PAL Assembly) and VHDL (mumble Hardware Description Language). Took a bit of sleuthing to match the Motorola code listings to ABEL though, as I was not previously aware of the language. I was reading the code and thinking, "This looks a bit like VHDL, but doesn't seem quite right...."
Anyone have the 68040 Technical Summary? Basically the datasheet for the 68040. The User Manual is all over the place (MC68040UM.pdf), but the Technical Summary/Datasheet seems to be unobtainium (MC68040D.pdf).
I had never seen the Designer's Handbook and had no idea it existed before a couple of days ago. I wish I had grabbed all the 68K relevant Application Notes back when. There's one on interfacing the DP83932 to the 68030 for ethernet, "32-Bit Bus Master Ethernet Interface for the 68030 (Using the Macintosh SE/30)". That's actually a National Semi AN (they made the DP83932). National Semiconductor AN691.
And for jt, "Replacment of MC68000 Processor with MC68020 or MC68030 with Coprocessor Option for MC68881 and MC68882: MACH110" by Christoph Niessen. And Advanced Micro Devices note, apparently. I'm not sure what their angle was, but I haven't read the note.
Also attaching the 68030 Technical Summary as an example. I have not been able to find the corresponding 68040 document, but it should look like that, except everywhere it says 68030, it should say 68040.
Oh, I forgot, yeah, there's something wrong with that AMD application note on replacing the 68000 with the 68020 or 68030. It starts out in English, for the summary, and then switched to German. And the code listing (in ABEL again) appears to be localized to German. Do we have any German speaking members?
View attachment Replacement_of_MC68000_with_MC68020_or_MC68030_[AMD_1993_18p].pdf
View attachment HDL-ABEL Primer.pdf
View attachment ABEL-HDLReferenceManual.PDF
View attachment abel_sample_code.pdf
View attachment MC68040_Designers_Handbook_[Motorola_1990_256p].pdf
View attachment AN691_32-Bit_Bus_Master_Ethernet_Interface_for_the_68030_(Using_the_Macintosh_SE30)_[NS_1995_1...pdf
View attachment MC68030_Technical_Summary_[Motorola__1991_52p].pdf
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MOS8_030
Well-known member
Trash80toHP_Mini
NIGHT STALKER
The SE/30 form factor is unmistakable:
There is no reason to use that form factor in anything but an SE/30 PDS or a IIsi PDS Right Angle Adapter per Apple spec. Thougf the plethora of mounting points has me wondering. This is literally the second card I think I've ever seen built to bog standard max. spec.
It wouldn't be the first time someone advertised vapor. Lead times on mag ads, promised release dates and actual condensation of liquid into the retail channel sometimes . . . erm . . . never mind.
Has anyone added the 1990 MC68040 Designer's Handbook to the reading list yet?
http://www.retronik.fr/motorola/68K/68040-68060/MC68040_Designers_Handbook_[Motorola_1990_256p].pdf
This is exhausting . . . :-/ . . . just thinking about it.
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MOS8_030
Well-known member
Yeah, a lot of documentation has been dropped or just plain lost over the years with the Motorola/Freescale/NXP transitions.
Trash80toHP_Mini
NIGHT STALKER
How many of us here are backing every bit we can find locally? []
] How many of us here are backing every bit we can find locally? [
And I am hoping that posting some of those docs here will help others expand their collections...
GeekDot
Well-known member
Well, yes you do. Bolle an I are „ze Gerrrmans“ in here.
The 2 German pages in the AMD doc are just the same as the previous English ones... 1:1 translation. No secrets there...
quick update on digging through the CP code:
I’m 99% sure to have found the ‚crash area‘, leading to the undocumented,mystery lomem globals. I’m currently comparing that between my IIci and SE/30. Quite a drag constantly swapping the C040 back and forth.
Generally, the CP is quite complex, many traps are going to be patched in there, 68882 emulation for the 040 been added, lots of cache handling etc etc...
GeekDot
Well-known member
Wow... nearly 10 months since the last post!
This and the fact that 68kmla had a moment of rest in last weeks I thought it would be a good thing to document my work on the Carrera 040 driver in a place I can control and also have all the means to create a layout fitting the requirements of describing 6000+ lines of 68k assembly ;-)
Yup, I will guide you along what I've done the last year+ (with pauses) and am still chewing on.
So click the link for your amusement, enlightenment or participation: http://www.geekdot.com/carrera-040-in-an-se-30/
Because of its sheer size, I'll add more chapters/post over the time until we're all on the same page. Sometimes it just needs more eyes & brains onto a problem to see the obvious.
This and the fact that 68kmla had a moment of rest in last weeks I thought it would be a good thing to document my work on the Carrera 040 driver in a place I can control and also have all the means to create a layout fitting the requirements of describing 6000+ lines of 68k assembly ;-)
Yup, I will guide you along what I've done the last year+ (with pauses) and am still chewing on.
So click the link for your amusement, enlightenment or participation: http://www.geekdot.com/carrera-040-in-an-se-30/
Because of its sheer size, I'll add more chapters/post over the time until we're all on the same page. Sometimes it just needs more eyes & brains onto a problem to see the obvious.