| Speed | 2 MHz |
| Memory | 48 KB |
|
|
| Release Date: |
10/1/1979 |
| Manufacturer: |
GenRad
|
Original Retail Price:
Adjusted Inflation Price:
|
$20,999.95
$63,073.90*
|
| |
|
Donated By:
|
Rick Hille |
| |
This system is actually primarily a development system. It contains:
- Intel 8080 processor 2 MHz.
- Built-in terminal, monochrome, green.
- S-100 bus interface (common at the time)
- In Circuit Emulator modules (options) for 8008, 8080, 6502, and 6800 CPU's
- Casette tape drive (option)
John Oldenkamp discusses his system:
We bought the FutureData in early 1980 and at that time, it was a recent
demo unit so I would think 1979 would be about right for its release
date. GenRad (General Radio) had some earlier models and we bought the
latest and greatest. We paid about $21K for it, equipped with 2x 8"
Shugart FDD (2x250K), 48K of target memory (expensive option), and the
in-circuit emulator/logic analyzer module for an 8085 target. We
considered the full 64K option but much of that was taken up by the OS,
video etc.
Like most development systems of the day, it ran with the native
processor i.e. if you were developing 8085 code, you bought an 8085 CPU
for the FutureData, for a 6800, the CPU was a 6800 etc. They supported
most of the popular 8 bit processors (we had a Z80 CPU board but never
used it). The CPU had to match the target because the
in-circuit-emulator ran inside the FutureData itself alongside the OS.
We used the logic analyzer and emulator infrequently, preferring to
download the code to a custom monitor program on the target but it
worked and was pretty zowie for the day.
Microcontrollers were supported with cross assemblers (we had the 8048
one) but did not have ICE support since the microcontrollers of the day
could not run the FutureData OS.
The oscillator was (I think) socketed so that you could match the
emulator speed to your target. The entire system ran at that rate. It
wasn't much, ours ran at something less than 4MHz. About average
|
|
User Comments |
David Stonier-Gibson on Friday, May 25, 2012
A correction on the AMDS.
It was not an S100 bus. It just happened to use the same edge connector.
I was the Australian sales and support engineer for FutureData in 1979/1980, working for Promicro Pty Ltd, a subsidiary of Datacraft. I had one of the very first AMDS units built, and provided better support back to the factory than they provided me!
The unit I had cost about 2 years salary for an experienced electronics engineer (me!). It had a 4MHz Z80, 64K static memory (dynamic was cheaper) and an all-important in circuit emulator. The emulator was actually an interface off the (non-S100) bus, which itself reflected the CPU chip via buffers.
It used one CPU to run everything. The debugger had to share memory with the target application. Everything was done in assembler.
There was a single hardware breakpoint, implemented as a bunch of TTL chips on the debug/emulator board. It pulled a non-maskable interrupt. The debugger software would determine if the NMI source was the breakpoint hardware or the target system, and branch accordingly. Thus NMI never gave true timing.
Despite such shortcomings, the AMDS was the very best universal development system of its day. With different CPU boards it could support 6800, 8085 and 1802.
Unfortunately FutureData could not withstand the competition from big name companies. Tektronix has a system. It was an absolute dog, but got sales because of the name. HP came out with a system at about 2-3 times the prices, and cleaned up with all the government buyers.
I still have an AMDS under the stairs at work. It got me started in my own business in the early 80's and was still in use until about 1989.
David Stonier-Gibson
splatco.com
|
Paul Raveling on Friday, October 16, 2009
In the preceding comment I forgot to mention the Intel 8088, 80186, and 80286 as more chips supported by the 2302 product line by 1983.
|
Paul Raveling on Friday, October 16, 2009
This example is very slightly earlier than 1979 in terms of what we used in-house at that time. I joined FutureData in 1979 and became manager of software development for the 2302 Slave Emulator product line, which involved writing a new debugger for what was called the ADS 2 (Advanced Development System) at the time I joined the company.
The ADS 2 and each 2302 emulator box used a nearly identical hardware configuration with a 4 MHz Z-80. In that generation of the 2300 the tape i/o was replaced by 8-inch floppy disks. The 2302 was a dual-processor system, split into the IP and the EP -- Interface Processor, with the Z-80, and Execution Processor, using the processor chip to be emulated.
The emulator's first target chip was the Intel 8086. Other target chips added to the product line while I was there were Intel 8080/8085, 8048, and 8051; Motorola 68000, 68010, 68020, and 6809; Zilog Z-8001, Z-8002, and Z-80; MOSTEK 6502.
|
|
Have a comment about this Computer (personal stories, additional information)?
Post it here (no registration required).
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
 "GenRad Futuredata 2300")