On Wed, 2026-06-17 at 08:26 +0000, Martin Bishop via cctalk wrote: > Microcode is also alive and well, and not just the Amd 29xx bit slice > paradigm. How else would you control (SIMD) mills implemented in > FPGA fabric : VLIW. etc etc
Does anybody have an operating Varian V-73? I wrote microcode to convince it that it was really an IBM 1130 (a very fast 1130). The university replaced the worn out 1130 with the V-73, then discovered Varian didn't offer a COBOL compiler. Being 1976, they still wanted to teach COBOL. So I wrote the microcode as my senior project. Two faculty, Frank Kollar and Delmorris Blakeley, wrote the I/O side in 620f assembler. Frank added a switch in the disk drive that swapped the top and bottom of the fixed platter. One way, it booted VORTEX, the other way it booted the 1130. I sent the microcode, and the listings for I/O (I didn't have electrons for it), to CHM.
