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ajcrm125
Guest
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 Posted:
Fri Dec 23, 2005 1:15 am Post subject:
RTL for Z8000 series CPU? |
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Hey guys, does anyone know where I can get VHDL/Verilog source for the
Z8001/Z8002 processor?
Thanks for any info!
-Adam
ajcrm125@gmail.com |
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Antti Lukats
Guest
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| Posted:
Fri Dec 23, 2005 4:25 pm Post subject:
Re: RTL for Z8000 series CPU? |
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"ajcrm125" <ajcrm125@gmail.com> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:1135279466.216912.316820@o13g2000cwo.googlegroups.com...
| Quote: | Hey guys, does anyone know where I can get VHDL/Verilog source for the
Z8001/Z8002 processor?
Thanks for any info!
-Adam
ajcrm125@gmail.com
yes, sure! |
www.zilog.com
I think some other entities have it also but not available.
the Z8 project at opencores is dead and unuseable, and there is little hope
that free z8000 core would exist
Antti |
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Grant Edwards
Guest
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| Posted:
Fri Dec 23, 2005 5:15 pm Post subject:
Re: RTL for Z8000 series CPU? |
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On 2005-12-23, Antti Lukats <antti@openchip.org> wrote:
| Quote: | Hey guys, does anyone know where I can get VHDL/Verilog source for the
Z8001/Z8002 processor?
yes, sure!
www.zilog.com
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So you're stating that Zilog has VHDL/Verilog for the Z8000
processor and it's available to the public?
--
Grant Edwards grante Yow! All of life is a blur
at of Republicans and meat!
visi.com |
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Antti Lukats
Guest
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| Posted:
Fri Dec 23, 2005 5:15 pm Post subject:
Re: RTL for Z8000 series CPU? |
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"Grant Edwards" <grante@visi.com> schrieb im Newsbeitrag
news:11qo23re0afujbc@corp.supernews.com...
| Quote: | On 2005-12-23, Antti Lukats <antti@openchip.org> wrote:
Hey guys, does anyone know where I can get VHDL/Verilog source for the
Z8001/Z8002 processor?
yes, sure!
www.zilog.com
So you're stating that Zilog has VHDL/Verilog for the Z8000
processor and it's available to the public?
I suppose, if you buy 51% of Zilog stock then its public for you :) |
I stated where to get - not the amount of $$$ that is needed.
Antti |
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Monte Dalrymple
Guest
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| Posted:
Fri Dec 23, 2005 5:15 pm Post subject:
Re: RTL for Z8000 series CPU? |
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| Quote: | Hey guys, does anyone know where I can get VHDL/Verilog source for the
Z8001/Z8002 processor?
yes, sure!
www.zilog.com
So you're stating that Zilog has VHDL/Verilog for the Z8000
processor and it's available to the public?
I suppose, if you buy 51% of Zilog stock then its public for you :)
I stated where to get - not the amount of $$$ that is needed.
Antti
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The Z8000 was designed before Verilog existed. I doubt that they
still even have the schematics. The Z8002 is available in Verilog
from www.systemyde.com , but it's not free. (But it's significantly
cheaper than buying half of Zilog.)
Monte |
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Peter Alfke
Guest
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Fri Dec 23, 2005 11:40 pm Post subject:
Re: RTL for Z8000 series CPU? |
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The Z8000 was designed at the transistor level by Shima, who also had
designed the 4004, 8008, 8080, and Z80. No logic diagram existed when I
got involved in the transfer to second-source AMD.
Those were the days..(1979/80). Hi, Monte!
Peter Alfke |
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Monte Dalrymple
Guest
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| Posted:
Sat Dec 24, 2005 12:20 am Post subject:
Re: RTL for Z8000 series CPU? |
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"Peter Alfke" <alfke@sbcglobal.net> wrote in message
news:1135359654.384929.210170@g49g2000cwa.googlegroups.com...
| Quote: | The Z8000 was designed at the transistor level by Shima, who also had
designed the 4004, 8008, 8080, and Z80. No logic diagram existed when I
got involved in the transfer to second-source AMD.
Those were the days..(1979/80). Hi, Monte!
Peter Alfke
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Hello Peter, long time no see!
Yes, Shima's schematics were a nightmare to try to understand,
given that he only drew transistors, and there were only signal
names for signals that left a sheet. But if you laid the schematic
sheets out so that the signals matched up, you had a complete
floorplan of the device. And the transistors on the sheets were
good guides for the layout designers when they were doing
the layout, because the "density" of schematic transistors was
relatively proportional to the layout density. Not like today,
when I can describe a few thousand transistors in a couple of
pages of Verilog code...
I doubt that those schematics survive though, as they predated
the era of document control at Zilog.
Monte |
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ajcrm125
Guest
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| Posted:
Sat Dec 24, 2005 1:15 am Post subject:
Re: RTL for Z8000 series CPU? |
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Looks like it back to sqaure one then.. doing it myself.
Too bad OpenCores doesn't have one. Maybe when I finish this one I can
submit it and save other poor saps like me the trouble. :-D
-Adam |
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ajcrm125
Guest
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| Posted:
Sat Dec 24, 2005 1:15 am Post subject:
Re: RTL for Z8000 series CPU? |
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How would I be violating anything if I made a Z8000 equivalent design
in Verilog/VHDL? I mean, if they had source for it, and I tweaked it
slightly and called it my own, I can see where that crosses the line.
But reverse engineering a design from its databook and creating a clone
isn't copyright infringement from what I understand.
What do you think?
-Adam |
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Peter Alfke
Guest
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| Posted:
Sat Dec 24, 2005 1:15 am Post subject:
Re: RTL for Z8000 series CPU? |
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Adam, if I were you, I would contact Zilog. The Z8000 is their design,
they probably have some legal rights (patents must be expired, since
the Z8000 was introduced around 1980, but there may be copyrights etc
that live much longer).
The Z8000 had many fans, especially in the military markets. Maybe
Zilog will help you, in order to help their frustrated Z8000 users.
You never know. They may become your friend, and you definitely do not
want them as your enemy...
Peter Alfke (at Zilog only 1978-1980) |
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Peter Alfke
Guest
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| Posted:
Sat Dec 24, 2005 7:29 am Post subject:
Re: RTL for Z8000 series CPU? |
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In the early 70's there was a company that built an early
microprocessor, and gave it the Data General Nova instruction set
("it's popular, so why burden designers with another architecture?")
Data General sued, I got dragged in as witness, and if I remember
right, DG won.
Too many lawyers, too few good engineers. My opinion. Peter Alfke
Shakespeare wrote in the Second Part of King Henry the Sixth, Act IV
Scene 2:
CADE. 'I thank you, good people- there shall be no money; all shall eat
and drink on my score, and I will apparel them all in one livery, that
they may agree like brothers and worship me their lord.'
DICK. 'The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.' |
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ajcrm125
Guest
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JJ
Guest
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| Posted:
Sat Dec 24, 2005 9:15 am Post subject:
Re: RTL for Z8000 series CPU? |
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ajcrm125 wrote:
| Quote: | Hey guys, does anyone know where I can get VHDL/Verilog source for the
Z8001/Z8002 processor?
Thanks for any info!
-Adam
ajcrm125@gmail.com
|
So why exactly would you want such a design? Do you have Z8000 binary
code you must run?
As noted below other IP shops have functionally reversed engineered it.
I recall one aerospace company had to run old code with timing
precision and paid for the Z8000 design to be redone. A functional
clone could give good guarantee that machine codes would run in same
time clock for clock. The Z8000 was complicated enough but was still a
fully predictable design as far as external events were concerned ie no
caches.
As it happens I also reverse engineered some of the Z8000 blocks around
79 and still have paper docs for the datapath, but that wouldn't get
you very far today. Also a good collection of comp arch books before
the H &P bandwagon took over, would often describe the
microarchitectures in some detail of most all mid 70s and earlier
designs.
If you don't need cycle accuracy, why not write a ISA translator and
retarget to Arm, x86, whatever. With the speed advantage you would get
a few orders of improvement. Thats probably already been done too!
transputer guy |
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dp
Guest
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| Posted:
Sat Dec 24, 2005 9:15 am Post subject:
Re: RTL for Z8000 series CPU? |
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Chuck F.,
| Quote: | At that time engineers had a lot more sense than they seem to
today, and wouldn't consider designing in a sole-source part. Thus
the license was a business necessity.
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I wish we could bring the same business necessity around again...
Engineers today have no options left - things get monopolised
faster than developed. It is a social rather than a technical problem,
not necessarily solvable in our lifetimes.
Not that I disagree with you that engineers had more sense back then
:-),
to me a person using tools which do things he/she does not understand
in detail is a machine operator, not an engineer...
Dimiter
------------------------------------------------------
Dimiter Popoff Transgalactic Instruments
http://www.tgi-sci.com
------------------------------------------------------ |
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ajcrm125
Guest
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| Posted:
Sat Dec 24, 2005 9:15 am Post subject:
Re: RTL for Z8000 series CPU? |
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| Quote: | Someone reversed engineered something back in the day.. I just can't
remember who. I'll do some digging.
Ahhh... I think what I remember was the whole Compaq/IBM episode with |
Compaq reverse engineering the IBM BIOS. Although I do remember a TV
show where an engineer was interview and he basically said "We had to
go though every possible opcode and see figure out what it did so we
could create a microprocessor that did the same thing". Man once you
hit 30 your memory just aint what it used to be.....
Anywho.. seing as how I'm using 0% of the originla Z8000
microarchitecture (as non is documented) I should be all set. |
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