Strange SBC with AMD29030 RISC CPU - clues?

I have a hunch there's a *nix port for the CPU

You got me curious, so I did I bit of searching. From what I can tell, no one ever actually used the AMD 29000 series as a workstation CPU. It appears there were a few obscure systems that used it as a coprocessor or graphics accellerator, but nothing that actually "ran" UNIX on it.

NetBSD doesn't have any AMD 29000 ports, which is rather telling.

--Peace

Lots of sucky printers used the AMD 29K series RISC CPU. I say sucky printers, because the CPU was sucky enough to drag down even the best print engine. Apple really had an affinity for way too long.

It's really more of a DSP than a CPU anyway, so it wouldn't be appropriate for running an operating system like a full featured desktop CPU.

Lots of sucky printers used the AMD 29K series RISC CPU. I say sucky printers, because the CPU was sucky enough to drag down even the best print engine. Apple really had an affinity for way too long.

It's really more of a DSP than a CPU anyway, so it wouldn't be appropriate for running an operating system like a full featured desktop CPU.

Feh. The 29000 gets a bad rap. It was a perfectly good CPU. The real "problem" with it was that it was tolerant of cheap, lousy supporting hardware. Exactly like one might find in a cut-rate printer controller.

By today's standards it might of been nothing to write home about, but the 29000 completely blew the doors off of Motorola 68000-based print engines. My old TrueImage dual-mode Laserwriter/Postscript clone printer could run rings around an HP Laserjet IIp or IIIp using the same Canon engine.

("Run rings around" meaning it could actually approximate it's 4 page-per-second engine rating on pages including some light graphics. Unlike the 68K HPs, which would sit there digesting for three minutes on the same pages.)

I did find several references which implied that both "Plan 9" and a cross-platform OS called "Inferno" were at one point running in at least an experimental capacity on 29000-based devices at Bell Labs, so it does appear it was at least possible to use the CPU in a workstation. I'd be curious as to how it performed in that capacity.

--Peace

At the time when the 29000 was current, it's principle competitor was the i860, which pretty much ate it for lunch. Comparing a risc cpu highly optimized for DSP against a 68K is kind of an apple's and oranges argument. Anyway, when the i960 and the ColdFire came out, those pretty much sounded the death knell for the 29K.