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

[Mark J. Dulcey]

Paul Fuqua wrote:

> 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.

The LMI Lambda evolved from the CADR, but it was not identical. It used 
a 64-bit microword word (longer than the CADR, which was either 48 or 56 
bits; I don't remember), and supported 64K words of microcode instead of 
the 16K supported by the CADR. The larger microcode store was meant to 
allow use of the microcompiler (a compiler that turned Lisp into 
microcode, with a lot of data type restrictions), but I don't think 
anybody ever did much with that. The other novel feature of the Lambda 
was the macro IR decode RAM (a 64K-word RAM with an entry for every 
possible 16-bit instruction pattern!) -- a brute force solution to the 
problem of decoding the rather baroque LM instruction set.

>     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.

It's a pity that nobody seems to have turned up a working Lambda. Those 
routinely shipped with full system sources, all the way down to the 
microcode, though some customers didn't bother with the full sources 
because they didn't have enough disk space for them.