68020 lives again!

Nagging hardware related question? Post here!
Post Reply
twellys
Bent Pin Expansion Port
Posts: 84
Joined: Tue Jun 28, 2011 11:00 am
Location: Boston Spa

68020 lives again!

Post by twellys »

The 68020 lives again, through a company called Tekmos. Through a collaboration with Motorola, they reverse-engineered the old 68020 to produce a compatible replacement.

See: http://www.tekmos.com/products/68020-microprocessors


User avatar
dilwyn
Mr QL
Posts: 2753
Joined: Wed Dec 01, 2010 10:39 pm

Re: 68020 lives again!

Post by dilwyn »

twellys wrote:The 68020 lives again, through a company called Tekmos. Through a collaboration with Motorola, they reverse-engineered the old 68020 to produce a compatible replacement.

See: http://www.tekmos.com/products/68020-microprocessors
Looks like they're based in Austin, Texas. Nothing to with Sandy Dave I take it??? :evil:


Derek_Stewart
Font of All Knowledge
Posts: 3932
Joined: Mon Dec 20, 2010 11:40 am
Location: Sunny Runcorn, Cheshire, UK

Re: 68020 lives again!

Post by Derek_Stewart »

Hi Dilwyn,

The Super Gold Card has a 68EC020FG25 surface mount soldered the the PCB under the Clock Battery.

To use the TK68020, a 68020/68EC020 adaptor would be required, which would mean removing the 68EC020, attaching the surface mounted adapter to accommodate the 68020.

I have data sheets for an adaptor from Ironwood Electronics, which could do this. See attached PDF.

Whether QDOS/SMSQ/E would cope with 68020 CPU is unknown and there would need alterations to Glue chip, which uses an obsolete Altera chip.

The adapter and new TK68020 are easy to do, but as normal with Super Gold Card hardware, the Altera Chip source code is unavailable. Unless there is a modern day alternative.

Maybe easier to start from scratch and make a new 68020 card with 4Gb ram...
Attachments
PC-PGA_QFP-68020-PN-01Dwg.pdf
68EC020-68020 Adaptor Datasheet
(73.67 KiB) Downloaded 184 times


Regards,

Derek
User avatar
dilwyn
Mr QL
Posts: 2753
Joined: Wed Dec 01, 2010 10:39 pm

Re: 68020 lives again!

Post by dilwyn »

I suspect you're right. The Super Gold Card is quite an old design and a new fairly basic 68020 interface with only the facilities needed for a modern QL system would be better than just building a new batch of Super Gold Cards anyway. I'm sure the experience of people like Paul with the QL-SD and Jose Leandro with the new Qubide show that there is a small but worthwhile demand for new hardware relevant to the needs of the QLers of 2015.


Silvester
Gold Card
Posts: 436
Joined: Thu Dec 12, 2013 10:14 am
Location: UK

Re: 68020 lives again!

Post by Silvester »

Bit disappointed that best speed is 33MHz, I would have hoped with modern fabrication methods we might have seen 100MHz. But I guess they are being made as replacements or new for embedded market (existing proven designs). I understand they were popular as traffic light controllers.


David
User avatar
Dave
SandySuperQDave
Posts: 2765
Joined: Sat Jan 22, 2011 6:52 am
Location: Austin, TX
Contact:

Re: 68020 lives again!

Post by Dave »

I know one of the people involved with this company. It has a good number of former Motorola/Freescale employees.

I do have a few 68EC020 around here somewhere.


User avatar
XorA
Site Admin
Posts: 1359
Joined: Thu Jun 02, 2011 11:31 am
Location: Shotts, North Lanarkshire, Scotland, UK

Re: 68020 lives again!

Post by XorA »

Well if you want to go ridiculously fast!

http://www.apollo-core.com/knowledge.php?b=1&note=2679


EtchedPixels
ROM Dongle
Posts: 5
Joined: Thu Jul 16, 2015 8:08 pm

Re: 68020 lives again!

Post by EtchedPixels »

Dave wrote:I know one of the people involved with this company. It has a good number of former Motorola/Freescale employees.
Do they have any plans to do small hobbyist order sizes or to have any kind of suppliers who would - I came across them earlier for HC11 as well but their parts seem unorderable by any small volume supplier.


User avatar
Dave
SandySuperQDave
Posts: 2765
Joined: Sat Jan 22, 2011 6:52 am
Location: Austin, TX
Contact:

Re: 68020 lives again!

Post by Dave »

I honestly have no idea.


Post Reply