[Coco] [OFF] Hitachi MB-6890 information needed

Tue Apr 22 15:25:19 EDT 2014

I think a more accurate history is that there was a Japanese magazine
article about the 6309's extra registers and other features, which got a
great deal more attention a couple of years after it was published when
someone translated it into English and it became available online.  The
article contained very great and accurate detail about the 6309, which to
my mind makes it implausible that it was simply the product of someone's
experimentation and detective work.  I strongly suspect that the
information was leaked by someone at Hitachi.  I'm sure the Hitachi brass
were terribly upset about that.  (Oh, no!  Now people will realize that the
6309 is more powerful than the 6809, and we'll probably sell way more of
them than we expected.  Dang it all!!)

Art

On Tue, Apr 22, 2014 at 2:33 PM, Gene Heskett <gheskett at wdtv.com> wrote:

> On Tuesday 22 April 2014 14:15:15 Luis Antoniosi (CoCoDemus) did opine:
>
> > So are you saying the 6309 extra features is a EASTER EGG?
>
> Absolutely Luis.  The original article that prompted the investigation that
> discovered what the 6309 could do was a note in FM magazine, a J.A.Pan
> company publication noting that what was treated as a bad command in the
> 6809 and was trapped as  such, was a different error that seemed to affect
> the registers without executing the error trap recovery.  That lead to the
> detective work that gave us, over the ensuing years, a pretty good map as
> to what these illegal ops actually did.  None of which has ever been
> admitted to by anyone from Hitachi despite my rather vigorous pumping of
> the handle when I encountered the Chief engineer of the professional tv
> camera division at the NAB in 1985.
>
> That conversation did get one end result though.  Per his instruction, I
> returned the camera from our film chain to their service shop, attention
> so-and-so, and when it was returned, it did not even power up.  The loaner
> however did work.  The upshot was that we traded serial numbers, I kept the
> loaner as WDTV's forever, and sent the one they had "repaired" back in
> place of their loaner.  And had 3 working cameras for the first time since
> they were purchased a month before I walked in the door the first time, 2
> years back up the log.  I did find several other bits of poor QC evidence
> in later years, like memory chips plugged into sockets with a leg or three
> missing the socket.  Everything was in 600 mill minidips way back
> then(1984).
>
> > On Tue, Apr 22, 2014 at 1:55 PM, Gene Heskett <gheskett at wdtv.com> wrote:
> > > On Tuesday 22 April 2014 13:49:13 Retro Canada did opine:
> > > > and maybe this machine was the reason for Hitachi to design the 6309
> > > > without motorola approval
> > >
> > > Correction, the contract with moto was to make a workalike clone in
> > > cmos, but hitachi never saw a moto chip mask.  They were much more
> > > advanced in cmos than moto was, made the workalike, but had so much
> > > empty space in the microcode table that their folks had lots of fun
> > > adding stuff.  But their clone contract with moto precluded it being
> > > promoted as better, only a clone in cmos.  And that it why to this
> > > day, hitachi will not even give a reply comment to any questions
> > > about its improved abilities.
> > >
> > > > On Apr 22, 2014, at 10:02 AM, Bill Pierce <ooogalapasooo at aol.com>
> > > > wrote:
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > Daniel,
> > > > I "googled" "hitachi mb-6890" and found all kinds of articles. One
> > > > of which was the manual page already linked. Another was a forum
> > > > where someone was saying they had a bunch of disks for it and were
> > > > wondering how to read them. Also you can google "hitachi peach" as
> > > > that seems to be the "pet" name of the machine. I also read that
> > > > many people wondered if hitachi was actually using a 6309 instead
> > > > of a 6809 as the machine seemed faster than a 6809 and had much
> > > > broader capabilities (especially graphics) than the average 6809
> > > > machine. Tha could explain why they never broadened their
> > > > distribution of the machine... Motorola probably wouldn't have
> > > > liked it :-) This machine may be a candidate for a NitrOS-9 port...
> > >
> > > Breaking the warranty seals and taking a look would answer that
> > > question.
> > >
> > > > Bill Pierce
> > > > "Today is a good day... I woke up" - Ritchie Havens
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > My Music from the Tandy/Radio Shack Color Computer 2 & 3
> > > > https://sites.google.com/site/dabarnstudio/
> > > > Co-Webmaster of The TRS-80 Color Computer Archive
> > > > http://www.colorcomputerarchive.com/
> > > > Co-Contributor, Co-Editor for CocoPedia
> > > > http://www.cocopedia.com/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
> > > > E-Mail: ooogalapasooo at aol.com
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > -----Original Message-----
> > > > From: Daniel Campos <daniel.campus at gmail.com>
> > > > To: CoCoList for Color Computer Enthusiasts <coco at maltedmedia.com>
> > > > Sent: Tue, Apr 22, 2014 9:29 am
> > > > Subject: Re: [Coco] [OFF] Hitachi MB-6890 information needed
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > WOW! Thanks!
> > > >
> > > > Daniel
> > > >
> > > > 2014-04-22 10:06 GMT-03:00 Benoit Bleau <benbleau at gmail.com>:
> > > > > Daniel,
> > > > > I found that this site has the manuals for the MB-6890
> > > > > http://www.1000bit.it/scheda.asp?id=980
> > > > >
> > > > > Benoit.
> > > > >
> > > > >
> > > > > On Tue, Apr 22, 2014 at 8:00 AM, Daniel Campos
> > > > > <daniel.campus at gmail.com
> > > > >
> > > > >> wrote:
> > > > >>
> > > > >> Hello,
> > > > >>
> > > > >> I just recently acquired a Hitachi MB-6890, a japanese machine
> > > > >> that used
> > > > >
> > > > > a
> > > > >
> > > > >> 6809 processor and was sold on Australia too.
> > > > >> I really want to know if someone here on this list have any
> > > > >> information about this machine? Perhaps some obscure repository
> > > > >> with disk images? :-)
> > > > >>
> > > > >> Daniel
> > >
> > > Cheers, Gene
> > > --
> > >
> > > "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
> > >  soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
> > >
> > > -Ed Howdershelt (Author)
> > > Genes Web page <http://geneslinuxbox.net:6309/gene>
> > > US V Castleman, SCOTUS, Mar 2014 is grounds for Impeaching SCOTUS
> > >
> > > --
> > > Coco mailing list
> > > Coco at maltedmedia.com
> > > http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco
>
>
> Cheers, Gene
> --
> "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
>  soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
> -Ed Howdershelt (Author)
> Genes Web page <http://geneslinuxbox.net:6309/gene>
> US V Castleman, SCOTUS, Mar 2014 is grounds for Impeaching SCOTUS
>
> --
> Coco mailing list
> Coco at maltedmedia.com
> http://five.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/coco
>