More questions about the MuP21 Development Box

["M. Edward Borasky (znmeb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx)" <znmeb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Nov 16, 19:29, Jeff Fox wrote:
| It comes with the OK menu system and its boot code and video code on the
| rom.  It boots up and is controlled by 7 buttons.  It has menus, demos,
| graphics, hex dump, and some of OKAD, as demos and examples.  You
| connect 8 buttons (one for reset) and a monitor, and power.  The
| software source is for DOS under an FPC version of Chuck's assembler
| for MuP21.  So you get Chuck's Forth assembler with OK as an
| example and library of routines.   You can also get a different
| assembler from Robert Patton, or the P21Forth compiler (with its own
| assembler).  Chuck's and Bob's assemblers run on the PC to create a
| UVPROM or PCMCAI card boot image.  Dr. Ting also includes a routine
| to convert vga graphics to P21 graphic images to be loaded into the OK
| demos.
|
| The P21Forth can use a parallel or serial keyboard.  So you can use a
| PC as host as was done on the Novix kits.  I am still metacompiling
| the P21Forth on the PC, but I am porting the source code and the
| minimetacompiler to the chip so it can metacompile without the PC.
It looks like my best course is to get a 1 MBYte SRAM card (about $50) and run
the cross-development code on my HP100LX, then pull the card from the HP and
stick it in the MuP21 box.  There are some special things about the HP
interface, though: the SRAM is treated as a RAM disk with some embedded
firmware in the HP.  Would this be a problem?  Another question: would I be
constrained to FPC on the HP or can I use some other FORTH (ZenFORTH leaps to
mind since that's what I have now).

Next question: since my intended application is off-line signal processing and
other flavors of number crunching, I will need fast multiply operations.  Is
there a multiplier in the hardware or will I have to do this in software?


-- 
M. Edward Borasky (znmeb@plaza.ds.adp.com)

Go Ducks!