DG AViiONs

AViiON 5000	m88100 x2	33MHz	114MB	serial terminal	1275 BTUs
AViiON AV530	m88100	33MHz	64MB	1280x1024x256 color
AViiON AV530	m88100	33MHz	32MB	1280x1024x256 gray

Not kidding about the heat generated. Now that's raw computing power! But at least it's noisy. :-?

If you own or are using Data General AViiONs of the m88k variety, drop me a line some time to let me know I'm not alone. I've ported thousands of lines of freeware and GNU code to DG/UX 5.4R3.00 (much easier than 5.4.2 and before). If you're interested in any of it you're welcome to it. I'm also on the lookout for hardware, particularly a second SCSI bus for the 5000 (SCSI-II if possible). I also have a spare AV530 processor card I'd like to add to one of the others to make another dual-processor system, but I just don't know how if it's even possible.

Anyhow, I rescued these babies from being thrown out a corporate window. They are old, outdated, and support work was no longer being performed on/with them. Most of that haul went to my group in Motorola for use as X terminals, but some, like the 5000, weren't terribly useful to us. I did manage to grab the color system to work from home with a parts machine that had memory in it. The grayscale machine took a little rebuilding, but it appears fine now.

The Motorola 88000 architecture is worth a look. Very elegant and very RISC. The latched bus was lifted from the 88k family when Motorola designed the single-chip PowerPC (from IBM's multi-chip POWER layout). The 88100 (first-generation CPU) was interesting, the 88110 (second-gen) was fast, and the 88120 never got out of design. It seems Apple and the PowerPC had already sounded the death-knell. Another engineering marvel down the toilet. DG probably wasn't too happy with us. A good clue to this is that modern AViiONs use Pentiums. Sigh.

Check out Great Microprocessors of the Past and Present for a look and the 88000 family.

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