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Interesting use for a 68000

Posted: Fri May 24, 2019 2:35 pm
by rubber_jonnie
I happened on this video today: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dcifHi2SE-0

If you get about 5 minutes in, it's a 68K at the heart of this device :)

Re: Interesting use for a 68000

Posted: Sat May 25, 2019 9:57 am
by exxos
Cool.

There was some 68K's in arcade machines in the past as well. Though most were Z80 powered.

Re: Interesting use for a 68000

Posted: Sat May 25, 2019 11:24 am
by DrF
exxos wrote: Sat May 25, 2019 9:57 am Cool.

There was some 68K's in arcade machines in the past as well. Though most were Z80 powered.
What I noticed about that was you had a 68K as the main and the Z80 would be doing something else all together.
I saw a video the other day and Super Hang On arcade was mentioned and it had 2 x 68ks, all 1 did was the track, the other did the main sprites.

I guess the price plays into a lot, since everything had them in, they must have been cheap enough.

Re: Interesting use for a 68000

Posted: Sat May 25, 2019 4:19 pm
by PhilC
the 68K series was even widely used in the electrical automation industry in one form or another back in the day.

I also had a couple of old sound samplers from the 90s that I robbed for parts due to being worthless at the time and they came with the SOC version of a 68030. If I remember, an Akai one had two fitted.

Re: Interesting use for a 68000

Posted: Sat May 25, 2019 4:42 pm
by czietz
My secondary digital oscilloscope (vintage model from HP, 400 MHz) is 68k-powered as well. Although the more interesting fact is that it has one of those Dallas NVRAMs with integrated battery from 1990 that is still holding up almost 30 years later.

Re: Interesting use for a 68000

Posted: Sat May 25, 2019 8:43 pm
by DrF
Remember the EuroFighter had a 68k family chip, turns out its 020, and found this little bit of info too :
A number of digital oscilloscopes from the mid-80s to the late-90s used the 68020, including the LeCroy 9300 Series[3] (higher end models including "C" suffix models used the more powerful 68EC030;[4] the 9300 models with a 68020 processor can be upgraded to the 68EC030 with a change of the CPU board[5]) and the earlier LeCroy 9400 series (all models[6][7][8][9] excluding the 9400/9400A which used the 68000[10]), along with certain Tektronix TDS Series models.[11]. The HP 54520, 54522, 54540 and 54542 also use the 68020, together with a 68882 math coprocessor.[12]

It is also the processor used on board TGV trains to decode signalling information which is sent to the trains through the rails. It is further being used in the flight control and radar systems of the Eurofighter Typhoon combat aircraft.

The Nortel Networks DMS-100 telephone central office switch also used the 68020 as the first microprocessor of the SuperNode computing core.
I had to throw away a box of old cable modems that had 020s in not too long ago, no one wanted them :(