[HN Gopher] NEC V20: Inspiring, Inconspicuous
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NEC V20: Inspiring, Inconspicuous
Author : rbanffy
Score : 32 points
Date : 2022-02-07 14:55 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.computer.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.computer.org)
| johnklos wrote:
| It was a common and affordable hardware upgrade for 8088 and 8086
| machines.
|
| It's a shame we didn't see more of this - while accelerators that
| plugged in to CPU sockets have been made for ages, the number of
| CPUs like the NEC ones that are made to be compatible with and
| improve existing systems is small. Lots of hardware has been
| wasted that could've had longer lives.
| gruturo wrote:
| I had its sibling, the V30, in an Amstrad PPC640DD luggable. I
| then transplanted it (before ZIF sockets, it was quite harrowing,
| esp. at 14-15 years old) onto a fixed PC (an Amstrad PC1640HDMD)
| since that one had ISA slots for a sound card, and Trakblaster
| required a V20/V30 or 80286 as bare minimum due to some of the
| instructions it used.
|
| Good times.
| unfocussed_mike wrote:
| That PPC640DD was a fascinating device, far cleverer than
| people remember. Really quite forward-thinking.
|
| Side note: my brain saw "NEC V20" and I knew what it was, but
| it instead took me to my memories of my NEC P30 (Pinwriter) --
| a wide-carriage 24 pin dot matrix printer that was loud enough
| to shake the whole house, and which you configured using an
| amusing question-and-answer dialogue. It would print a config
| question, scroll the paper up so you could see it, you'd answer
| with the buttons, it would scroll the paper back down (no
| wasting!) to print the next one. At the end you had this neat
| little transcript of the configuration and you felt like you'd
| talked to an alien intelligence.
|
| Side note 2 on the subject of forgotten Amstrad devices: my
| first PC was an Amstrad 3286. This was a time when Amstrad
| stopped making weird, slightly incompatible PCs and instead
| made a range of excellent, straight-down-the-line compatibles
| with nice cases. Just at the same time as IBM were
| manufacturing the (really non-standard) PS/1 at a factory not
| twenty miles from Amstrad's... both lost to history but that
| 3286 was great. I think I put a 20mb HDD in it, formatted to
| 32mb because of an RLL controller.
| gruturo wrote:
| > That PPC640DD was a fascinating device, far cleverer than
| people remember
|
| Indeed. Its built-in modem was my gate to the world, once I
| figured out which wires to connect to the phone system (it
| came with a british jack, utterly unknown in my country back
| then).
|
| The screen was quite flimsy though - its hinges failed quite
| early and I had to keep it propped with some objects in the
| back.
|
| And it ate batteries like crazy, but on the other hand it ran
| on batteries when needed! This was in 1987-88, so quite cool.
| I remember a journalist having a cigarette lighter socket
| welded on a car battery terminals, and able to work for some
| time with it, I wonder if I can find the original article
| online.
| unfocussed_mike wrote:
| Yeah, I saw someone use one running off a car, once.
|
| It comes from a brief period of really frantic, bonkers
| professional computing innovation especially in the UK --
| the Cambridge Z88 launched the year before.
| Jaruzel wrote:
| I own its little brother, the PPC512DD. It is in fully
| working condition. As I understand it, the only difference is
| the amount of memory (512K vs 640K) and the inbuilt modem of
| the 640.
|
| At some point I'll fathom how to add an external ISA slot to
| it, as apparently the expansion connector is compatible.
|
| Also, way back when the Amstrads were current, I upgraded my
| desktop PC 1512 with a NEC V20 (or was it a 30?) for that
| little bit of speed increase.
| druzyek wrote:
| The BCD processing was indeed a big advantage of the V20, which
| is why Casio used it in graphing calculators like the AFX 1.0 and
| 2.0.
|
| One point about comparing to the 8087 is that the 18-digit packed
| BCD format the 8087 used was converted internally to binary
| before doing any calculations. This lost the advantage BCD has of
| avoiding rounding errors between decimal and binary and was no
| better than regular binary calculations. The V20 BCD instructions
| didn't have that problem.
| rbanffy wrote:
| > Casio used it in graphing calculators like the AFX 1.0 and
| 2.0.
|
| Wow! Didn't know that! I'm impressed there is even a
| VT-100-compatible terminal for it.
| linker3000 wrote:
| If anyone fancies playing with a V20, here's a nice project for
| which a PCB is available:
|
| https://j4f.info/v20-mbc
| rjsw wrote:
| I put V30s in several Olivetti M24 PCs to speed them up a bit.
| gallier2 wrote:
| Loved my V30 in my Atari ST. The fun part was that it was faster
| than the 68000 on bus access (3 cycles instead of 4) which
| allowed with some special drivers to accelerate even operations
| under TOS.
| mrlonglong wrote:
| I've a NEC V30 sitting on my desk, waiting for a chance to put it
| on some breadboard with some support chips so I can have a play
| with it. Only issue I don't know what else I need to use with it!
| I would use UART to comunicate with it.
| blakespot wrote:
| I put an NEC V20 in my Amiga 2000's A2088 BridgeBoard for a nice
| boost in performance, and I've recently replaced the 8MHz 8088-2
| in my recent acquired Tandy 1000HX with a V20. It's a great
| telnet BBSing machine. I've got some pics of the Tandy and the
| upgrade process in a gallery:
|
| https://www.flickr.com/photos/blakespot/albums/7215770249469...
| thanatos519 wrote:
| It sure made my 5150 go faster!
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