[LMH] Re: [LMH]Nevermore (well, exploiter actually)

[nyef@sc.am]

On Thu, May 20, 2004 at 12:16:27PM -0400, Brad Parker wrote:
> 
> Hi,

Hello.

> Some dumb questions (which I think I sent before but seem to have gone
> into the bit bucket)
> 
> - is there a list of names which describes an Explorer I,II & cpu names,
> i.e. raven, hummingbird, etc???

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.

> - is an Explorer I essentially a CADR?  Will an E1 run CADR microcode?
> (I thought I read that it would/could)

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

> - I was fooling around with exploiter and got it past the previous disk
> problem but crashed in to needing support for lexical closures.  I
> thought "I'll just look at the microcode".  But, ahem, no microcode
> source.  The SSDN2 is good but no substitute for definative microcode.

If this is at any point past the scheduler initialization you should 
realize that the stack-group switch doesn't work properly, especially in 
regards to the binding stack (specpdl).

> How come there is no source to the E1 or E2 microcode?  Can that nice person
> from TI on the list dig it up, even older versions?

The nice person from TI with the microcode listing has, if memory 
serves, the VM1 (pre-release-3) sources in hardcopy only.

> Seems obvious, so there must be good historical reasons - please pass
> the clues :-)

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.

> -brad

--Alastair