Digital's Personal Computers
Article Abstract:
Digital Equipment Corp.'s three series of personal computers, the Professional Series, the Rainbow series, and the DECmate II, meet different application needs of the business and technical markets. The Professional 300 series operate as stand-alone systems or as part of distributed systems. Their architecture is sixteen bit and is basd on the PDP-11. The F-11 processor controls the flexible bit-map display for alphanumeric and graphic capabilities. Operating systems supported are PDP-11 based P-OS, and RT-11 as well as UNIX-based ULTRIX, VENIX, and IDRIS. Rainbow 100 and 100+ computers can process 8- and 16-bit software with their Z80A and 8088 processors running MS-DOS or CP-M-86-80. Data transfers are handled by the Z80A and the 8088 series as the master processor. The Rainbow also features advanced diagnostics software and extended memory and graphics. The DECmate II uses the 6120 custom CMOS processor which implements a 12-bit version of the PDP-8. All three personal computers are physically and visually similar and have two interchangeable modules. Block diagrams illustrate architectures of the three systems. Diagrams and photographs illustrate the systems' similarities and modularities. A table lists characteristics of the three families.
Publication Name: Proceedings of the IEEE
Subject: Electronics
ISSN: 0018-9219
Year: 1984
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The Design and Development of a Family of Personal Computers for Engineers and Scientists
Article Abstract:
Three generations of personal computers have evolved from Hewlett-Packard's original personal computer, introduced in 1968. The most recent, the Hewlett-Packard Series 200 personal computers, is based on the original design objectives. These objectives include physical world interfacing, real-time data acquisition, computational power, memory size, ease of program development, software flexibility, graphics capabilities, and environmental requirements. The series 200 uses the 16-bit Motorola 68000, 64K byte RAM chips, and cache with memory management for multitasking systems. An extensive set of interface adapter cards are available. Four software systems designed for the Series 200 include a Boot ROM, the HPL interpreter system, BASIC, and the Pascal Workstation System. HP-UX, a compatible implementation of UNIX, was made available for multitasking applications in December 1983. Future trends will improve memory capacity, floating-point computation, graphics display, networking, and quality and reliability. LISP technologies are being adapted for the Series 200. Tables list characteristics of the Series 200 and other HP personal computers. Diagrams illustrate system architecture and memory organization.
Publication Name: Proceedings of the IEEE
Subject: Electronics
ISSN: 0018-9219
Year: 1984
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