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AppleCrate II: Apple II-Based Parallel Computer
sproketboy noted that many years ago
Michael J. Mahon built the AppleCrate — a parallel stack of Apple IIs — for no good reason. Recently he came back with the AppleCrate II, which more than doubles the number of motherboards, and at least triples the awesomeness.
Apple II == 6502 CPU from Commodore Semiconductor
No, the 6502 was designed by Motorola and manufactured by MOS Tech. Besides, he's using enhanced 2e's which sported a 65c02 which was designed by Western Design Center...
More correctly, the 6502 was designed by Chuck Peddle and Bill Mensch. Both engineers were working for Motorola, but the 6502 was an underground project. Management didn't approve of their efforts to create a cheaper version of the 6800. They left, and started working for MOS to finish the design.
It was actually the 65c816, which was a 16-bit version of the 6502, completely unrelated to the m68k, and binary-compatible with the 6502 so the IIgs could still run old Apple II software.
If you look at this actual website, it becomes more obvious WHY he's using Apple II boards.
#1) He's using discrete components and actual wire and solder to cobble the boards into a single computer. He uses perf-board and socketed chips to build his extra peripherals. YOU CANNOT DO THAT with modern Intel-based mobos. They are all surface mount and pretty much unhackable unless you've got some elYte equipment.
#2) The Apple II board was built by a hacker, for hackers. That makes it the obvious choice in a nutshell. This is exactly the kind of stuff Woz wanted people to do with his creation.
#3) There's no challenge to doing parallel computing with an intel mobo -- they are already coming off the shelf with 8 cores. What's the fun in that?
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
Western Design Center WAS Bill Mench. I worked with him. He had the rights to the 6502 as well as the follow on 16C6502. Bright guy but a disaster to work with. The world revolved around Bill. Did not matter that all of the world semiconductor fabs had their own design rules for how THEY manufactured semiconductors. Bill designed things based upon what he thought they SHOULD be using. Made for very fun times when you had to do silly things like DRC and timing analysis. In particular race condition analysis because you.... oh.... ran your CLOCK lines in poly (aka resistor) instead of metal. Can you say "Race Condition?" or how about "Lets beat the clock!"...............
gad I thought I forgot those days....................
"TV, a medium as it is neither rare nor well done." Ernie Kovacs
#2) The Apple II board was built by a hacker, for hackers. That makes it the obvious choice in a nutshell. This is exactly the kind of stuff Woz wanted people to do with his creation.
Wow, kind of a reminder of how much they've changed. These days it's, "You need an Apple technician to replace the battery / hard drive / casing / logo..."
Information theory is life. The rest is just the KL divergence.