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Ge workstation

1

1ajs

Experienced Member
Joined
May 27, 2005
Messages
452
Location
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
anyone herd of this black beast?

mines all apart think i am going to toss it back together

mine was bought by sherritt in lynn lake and was used at the mill to program plc's and some other equitment from what i understand i've seen 1 other one thats still used wth a searies six plc that i would love to get my hands on, and use this one as my gehto mod project i never finished

the guts are in a cupboard safely stashed away at least

workstationw.jpg
 
We had a thread on these a while back. It's based on a modified IBM 5155 Portable PC case and chassis, and was designed for industrial use.
 
I'd love to see it when you get it back together, IBM variants taunt me, they're so interesting to me. Definitely good luck on getting it back together!
 
This machine was used for programming GE Series Six PLCs (programmable logic controllers). Hopefully the original hard disk is still in there with the programming software. Now all you need is the PLC!

Lou (Series 90/30 user)
 
Very good on having a Series Six to go with the workstation. Perhaps there needs to be a vintage PLC forum! When you get it all restored, set it up and post a photo for us.

I used to be a controls engineer for GE (for power systems, not Charlottesville), so I have some fondness for this gear. I have a 90/30 that used to be used for various things around the house (most notably Christmas lights). It's in storage until a big project comes along some day.

Lou
 
kool man got a highspeed counter modual never used laying around for the 90-30 and some searies one gear not sure how to use any of it i gues i should set up and play around i hear theres good money in programing plc's and seting things up speacly if done right
 
so anoying i seem to of lost some parts blah!

cable for the keyboard
case screws
video card :S how does one lose a card as big as the one in this system is.is beyond me


got the monitor in it but i highly doubt i will have it runing anytime soon :(
56113621.jpg


the mobo
mobonh.jpg
 
That's probably the coolest luggable 808x machine I've ever seen! Quite a lot of ISA slots for a portable, too - my Sr. Partner only has one (and one wonky RAM expansion slot that looks like ISA)!

Since it's a 5155-based machine I'd imagine you can find a replacement for the video card without too much trouble. As for the keyboard cable the same should apply. The case screws might be annoying if they use some nonstandard threading or lengths, but it shouldn't be too bad. Learn the lesson to store machines assembled, though, lol.
 
yea thats what happens when someone takes it apart to fix something and it gets stashed and a kid comes along and has a great idea of converting it to pentium searies lol i will go kick my self now
 
1ajs said:
the mobo
mobonh.jpg
Click to expand...

Looks like the computer had its motherboard replaced at some point, because this is not the IBM XT motherboard that would've been used in a regular 5155. This appears to be a generic "Turbo XT" clone motherboard.
 
In that case - it not being stock, and missing some parts - perhaps you should up the ante a bit and put a V20 or V30 (I don't know what one this board would take). If I am seeing right the chip on top is an Intel chip and the bottom one is an AMD, so neither is an NEC part. If you need a V20 I have one I am not using - for some reason it wouldn't work with an 8087 in my 5160, but the chip worked fine in every other circumstance, so I think it was my particular setup or some such, not the chip. I'd part with it for not much.
 
1ajs said:
its not the origonal board??

dumb question whats a v20 or v30??
Click to expand...

I concur with Raven's observation. That looks like a generic Turbo XT motherboard variant, not a 5155 motherboard.

Could you send pictures of the back of the case? I wonder if some of the 8 slots are not useable once in the case.

The V20 and V30 are NEC 8088/8086 variants. The V20 is used to replace 8088 parts, and has a slight performance boost (at the same clock speed) as their 8088 counterpart due to internal optimizations. NEC V20/V30 CPUs were essentially reverse engineered renditions of the Intel chips, and introduced some enhancements. From what I've read, they even included internal 8080 emulation, so they could run CP/M.

There's enough information out on the interwebs (and Wikipedia) that a quick Google search should answer most of your questions regarding them.
 
EddieDX4 said:
The V20 and V30 are NEC 8088/8086 variants. The V20 is used to replace 8088 parts, and has a slight performance boost (at the same clock speed) as their 8088 counterpart due to internal optimizations. NEC V20/V30 CPUs were essentially reverse engineered renditions of the Intel chips, and introduced some enhancements. From what I've read, they even included internal 8080 emulation, so they could run CP/M.
Click to expand...

Perhaps the most important is that (in addition to some instructions not found on other x86 family chips), the V-series implements the non-privileged 80286 instructions. This can be very valuable when trying to get some ISA cards with later BIOSes going.

There was a landmark lawsuit by Intel against NEC on the V20/V30 microcode. Intel never maintained that the actual design of the V-series chip was an infringement of its x86 work. Remember that NEC, under terms of an 1976 license agreement with Intel could produce 8086 and 8088 chips legitimately. What Intel alleged was that the microcode for the V-series chips developed by Hiroaki Kaneku was based on a disassembly of the x86 microcode. Intel pointed to various microinstruction sequences as evidence that NEC had infringed their copyright.

The court found against Intel on two counts. First, NEC stated that the V-series microcode was actually developed by an engineer, Gary Davidian, in a "clean room" environment. That is, Apparently Kaneku looked at the code that Intel had written and summarized his findings and Davidian used the summary as a coding guide. The court thus drew a sharp line between an idea (not protected by copyright) and the expression of an idea (protected). FWIW, the microcode word length in the two CPUs wasn't the same, nor was the internal structure of the CPU at all similar to the Intel chips. "Reverse engineering" is perhaps a bit misleading in this respect.

The other finding against Intel was that the initial version of its microcode wasn't protected by copyright because Intel had failed to require that its licensees such as NEC include an Intel copyright notice on their chips (of course it was on all chips that Intel produced)!

This was a major case in intellectual property and is a fun read. It's discussed in the Spring 1990 Harvard law Review.

For whatever it's worth.
 
EddieDX4 said:
I concur with Raven's observation. That looks like a generic Turbo XT motherboard variant, not a 5155 motherboard.

Could you send pictures of the back of the case? I wonder if some of the 8 slots are not useable once in the case.

The V20 and V30 are NEC 8088/8086 variants. The V20 is used to replace 8088 parts, and has a slight performance boost (at the same clock speed) as their 8088 counterpart due to internal optimizations. NEC V20/V30 CPUs were essentially reverse engineered renditions of the Intel chips, and introduced some enhancements. From what I've read, they even included internal 8080 emulation, so they could run CP/M.

There's enough information out on the interwebs (and Wikipedia) that a quick Google search should answer most of your questions regarding them.
Click to expand...

txs for the info

backnv.jpg


all the slots line up heck i can put a pentium board in and it lines up used to have a 333 in it for a while
 
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