#: 6557 S12/OS9/68000 (OSK)
06-Sep-90 19:11:49
Sb: #6530-#PT68-K4
Fm: Jack Crenshaw 72325,1327
To: Jack Crenshaw 72325,1327 (X)
A couple of years ago, MicroCornucopia sponsored an effort (actually, more than
one) to get some kind of 16-bit hobby computer going. MicroC got started as
the "house organ" for the Big Board Z80 SBC, which evolved into the Xerox 820
and finally the Kaypro. I think their idea was to do it again, only with 16 or
more bits. There were a couple of tries, including National 32000 chips and a
couple of coprocessor boards for PC's.
At the MicroC SOG in 1988, Joe Bartel of Hawthorne industries announced the
"Tiny Giant," which was a 68000-based system in 5.25" disk drive form factor,
like the Ampro. In other words, the PC board would bolt to the side of a disk
drive. To make it useful for anything, Hawthorne also developed both a
programming language and an operating system, the latter being called K-OS.
Joe freely admits that it was a rough cut just to get something going, but
their concepts were pretty neat. They developed a stack-oriented language
called HTPL, which was a FORTH-like language but with much more of a
Pascal-like syntax. K-OS was then written in HTPL. They even had a Pascal
compiler, which used HTPL as the P-code.
Shortly after I got the PT68 and had written the review for MicroC, Joe Bartel
called me and asked me to port K-OS to the system. I told him that I would,
but warned him it would be awhile ... at that point I was working hot & heavy
on my compiler tutorial series, and also was committed to writing a debugger
and linker for the PT-68. Joe said that was OK, and he sent me a "developer's
kit," which consists of all the S/W, plus a cross-assembler and sample BIOS, to
run on a PC. I never got the thing ported, and I understand that Joe &
Hawthorne moved on to bigger and better things ... they got a big hardware
contract and couldn't care less what happens to K-OS. So I still have the
system waiting to be ported. I plan to do it Real Soon Now.
Jack
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