Nukeman 226 technical brief

 1.General
 The Nukeman is a portable, battery powered computer with inherent
SCSI-2, Ethernet, 2xRS232 interfaces and 6 Nukebus slots.
It is notebook sized (260 x 240 x 78 mm, almost half of this space
occupied by the slots), has a 75 Wh NiMh battery inside and weighs
(including battery) 3.4 kg.

 The computer is 68340 processor based and is running DPS, our
multi-task operating system.

 The Ethernet interface employs a DP83932 (SONIC) chip;
the SCSI interface uses an NCR53CF96 which supports SCSI-2,
and the 2 RS-232 ports use the internal UART modules of the 68340.
The keyboard is external only; the input expects a standard serial
keyboard.
 The battery and the DC-DC convertors are controlled by a 68HC11
MCU which communicates with the main processor via the SPI
interface (with ID no.7; slots are 0 to 5). The MCU monitors
the +5,+15,-15,+24 and -24 volt outputs and detects short circuit,
overload and overvoltage at each of them individually;the convertor
associated with the event is shut down. Status information is
available to the main processor, as well as other unit unique
data (like serial number, system clock frequency etc.). Battery
charge/discharge is done under MCU control; there are various
battery associated parameters available for modification. The MCU
is never switched off, during power-off it is only 32 kHz clocked,
and continues to operate as real-time clock and power-on key
monitor. Once the power is on, the MCU is clocked at full speed,
powers the computer with the 68340 and continues in a more
sophisticated board monitor/interface mode. The 68340 computer
boots DPS either from the default device (the internal HDD) or,
if the proper key was held down during power on, enters the
ROM monitor program from where it can be commanded to boot from
any SCSI and/or IDE device.

 2. Nukebus general description.

 Nukebus was designed in order to define one more layer between
the user operated computer and the acquisition/control hardware.
Standard PC interfaces in most cases lack some of the power supply
voltages necessary, impose compatibility problems, and become
less and less the suitable choice for hardware control as processors
become bigger and more pipelined.
 Nukebus is not meant to be a memory expansion bus. The basic type
of device, which would be connected to it, is a module (usually with
its own single-chip microcontroller) used for measurement and/or control 
functions, which needs either slow or fast or both data transfers to/from
the host computer. The fast data transfers are done through the 16
data lines; every slot is addressed by a pre-decoded address strobe
signal, and has 8 address lines available for internal addressing.
Several interrupt request/acknowledge lines are also available.
 The slow data exchange is done via the 4 SPI lines. The Nukebus host
computer selects one of the slots and clocks the data to/from the slot;
this is the way the object type "nukebus_module" does get status data
or sends commands to the module MCUs of the modules available from us.
 The power supply voltages at a Nukebus connector are +15, -15, +24, -24,
+5 and Vbatt. Vbatt is the unregulated battery voltage (not specified
as a value). There are 3 different ground signals : AGND (analog ground),
DGND (digital ground) and PGND (power ground, the corresponding return of
Vbatt only).
 The Nukebus connector
 is a 68-pin, 1.27 mm pitch connector.

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