[LMH]Nevermore (well, exploiter actually)

[Paul Fuqua]

    Date: Thu, 20 May 2004 03:48:01 -0500
    From: nyef@sc.am
    
    Not an explicit list, no. Of the ones you explicitly asked about, Raven 
    is the processor from the Explorer I and Hummingbird is the processor 
    used in the Explorer II and the microExplorer.

Projects were being named after birds at that time.  Raven was the
original Explorer codename.  Somewhere along the line it was
semi-officially renamed Chaparral, that being a more "Southwestern"
bird;  some folks have little Chaparral pins from those days.  Then
marketing got it and named it Explorer.

Microcoders are stubborn people, so files and features were named
Raven (ravsym, #+raven) to the end.

Hummingbird was the Explorer 2 processor because it was small and
moved very fast (relatively speaking).  It was also part of the DARPA
Compact Lisp Machine project so sometimes there are references to
that.

    No, but I hear tell that it is essentially an LMI Lambda (microcode 
    compatible, at least).

My understanding was that the original LMI Lambdas were indeed
CADRs.  The later Lambda/E model was a rebadged Explorer.  I think we
had LMI microcode running on Explorers -- certainly LMI did -- but I
don't know what degree of porting was required.

    Yeah, the reason we don't have the microcode, the microcode assembler, 
    or the genasys utility is that nobody could find a copy. Gone. All gone.

Yep, nobody had the foresight to snapshot it before the division
where the machine holding the master source lived was sold off.
There are persistent rumors that somebody has it on a brick or tape
in a box somewhere, but they haven't panned out yet.

What we do have are some paper copies of VM1 microcode source, and
some Explorer 1 microcode development tools, and scattered fragments
of other stuff.  I thought Genasys was part of the regular system
source, but then that just builds the load band, it's not part of the
microcode system.

I did disassemble enough of the Explorer 1 microcode to answer some
questions, but I'm in a delicate position as a TI employee using TI
tools to fiddle with TI intellectual property, so it isn't public
yet.

Paul Fuqua
Texas Instruments, Dallas, Texas                     pf@ti.com