Also called Systém Pořizování Údajů,TP8.Designed by SEDLÁČEK PAVEL ING.It was manufactured from 1979 (it could have been introduced, the development was definitely taking place) by ZVT B.Bystrica.
Hardware is based on 74181 @ 10 MHz.Operating systems running on the computer: SPUAS,MKOS-1.
The entire processor is built on TTL 74xx series circuits, so there is no microprocessor in the modern sense of the word.
The front panel is labeled RPL (Control Panel), it is connected to the TP8 bus using individual wires (wound connections).
The model of the processor will probably be a calculator from HP, I guess according to the bus terminology - /SIH, /CEO, SP-ScratchPad signals can be found, for example, in HP9830 or in patent US4012725A. If anyone has more information, please get in touch.
It is a board with an array of connections with a metric pitch of 2.5 mm. According to the photos, these boards were apparently quite actively used for various specific applications where it was not appropriate to use any existing peripheral board.
(it is also possible to use TNS-BASTL, which was created later)
They plug into the ZPP part of the SPU-800 like other peripheral cards
The cards can be addressed in the entire 64kB address space of the processor. At least one P1K card usually contains a Boot ROM, e.g. to load additional code from a punched tape.
According to available unverified information for the SPU-800 there was also a set of complete controller cards with DRAM memory (cards PMT 7CB 006 275, GAD 7CB 006 276 and RSP 7CB 006 277).
They connect to the ZPP part of the SPU-800
LED indication:
Functions (buttons):
Program Counter, ACC, PHASE, CARRY are dynamically displayed while the processor is running (the LEDs flash)
The bus is I/O compatible with 8-bit TNS.
| MI[0..7] | memory IN |
| MO[0..7] | memory OUT |
| MW | Memory Write |
| CO[0..3] | I/O select CODe |
| SO[0..3] | I/O Status OUT |
| SI[0..3] | I/O Status IN |
| DI[0..7] | I/O data IN |
| TO[0..7] | I/O data OUT |
| /SIH | Service INhibit |
| /CEO | Control-Enable-Output |
In 2023, Martin Bílý shared the use of the SPU-800 at the CTU FEL: "I knew this as, let's say, an educated user sometime around 1985. I encountered it in the mode of, let's say, a terminal workstation. Four workstations, a character screen, a keyboard. Through of domestic modems connected to a superior computer. Modems the size of a shoe box. There was some kind of protocol on that line for addressing individual workplaces. I have a vague idea that the text of the entire line was being transmitted that the lines were scrolling. There was no such thing as teletype mode. It was not very comfortable to edit the files in the line mode. users only used it in emergencies when they didn't want to wait for "normal" terminals to be released.
In the deployment known to me, it was about expanding the number of user workstations of the ICL-2904 minicomputer. The communication line was a piece of cable, the modems for both ends were on top of each other in the table of one of those workplaces. I don't know why modems were used there. Perhaps that ICL computer required a full and true serial interface on its interface with all control signals and their timings.
I have no idea what the typical use of the SPU-800 was, how and what it was programmed into. In my case, the assembly worked at the imaginary turn of the mains switch."
In a treatise on the history of the use of computing technology at the FE BUT in Brno, he states about the SPU-800: "The first terminal classroom was a classroom built on the SPU 800 system... The terminal classroom was connected to the ADT 4316 minicomputer via the TC-99 serial communication protocol, its use was started in 1983. The SPU 800 system consisted of a TP8 terminal processor, 9 expanders, with which it was possible to increase the number of connected devices and individual workplaces. .]
It can be said that during the development of the terminal classroom, a typical feature of that time manifested itself - our workplace had to develop the necessary technical and software equipment on its own. It was a time when devices appeared on the market whose deployment in a specific application was handled by their users themselves. Our workplace was able to implement such activities."
EPROM programmer (see AMARO in references)
Peter Šindler states in private correspondence (2024/05) about the use of the SPU-800:
"An interesting deployment of the SPU800 was in Ziari nad Hronom in the aluminum smelter, where the SPU-800 network (possibly 10 units) was connected to the SM4-20 and the SPU-800 were connected to the furnaces for the production of aluminum, where it was determined whether the so-called skin-emergence effect had occurred electrodes made of liquid aluminum and the time it took for the operator to respond, and according to that, it turned out terribly, because the operator did not respond and there were very large energy losses. ."
The program for the punched tape, which is loaded by the standard loader from the SDP card to address 0170000 (0xF000) and counts slowly on the ACC front panel display from 0377 to 0000, the BASE64 encoded content of the punched tape follows:
ADwAOfAA/wBlZv//YwAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAAAAAAAAAANiVGmVTsTAH/9tl lhpmU7EwB9STFWOyMAfYvUAwAADo