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Wanted - Tektronix 8560 Development Unit
- Thread starter edcross
- Start date
Al Kossow
Documentation Wizard
where are you located?
dave_m
Veteran Member
There is nothing special about the 8560. It is a well packaged LSI-11 with 8" floppies and a 40 MB hard drive, and ran a version of UNIX called TNIX. To make a full development/debug station, you also need an 8540 Integration Unit and its In-circuit Emulator (ICE) pod for your target processor. Also the software package for the target. I used the system in the early 80's and it worked very well.
If you find an 8560 series computer, make sure you can create all the needed software on floppy as the hard drive will probably be dead and need replacement.
dave_m
Veteran Member
Do you have the software on floppy or tape? Are you hoping to use the system for development work and debug? That would be fun. There's someone on ebay selling a Z80 ICE pod for the 8540.
Hi Dave, I currently own a complete 8540 with a Z80 interface, it can operate standalone through serial but i'm looking to complete the system with the multi-user dev system box (8560).
Among many uses these systems were also used for the development of arcade video games, my primary field of interest. I actively work in game preservation by doing RE of ICs via arcadehacker.blogspot.com, and in recreativas.org by documenting and preserving arcade games developed / manufactured in Spain.
My end goal is to complete the Tek system to document and expose how these systems made game development possible, use cases, examples, etc.
Below is a nice flyer from one of the pioneering companies in our country (Tecfri, later Gaelco makers of World Rally, Radikal Bikers, etc). You can see several Tektronix units along with terminals in one of the photos.
Any leads to finding a Tek 8560 unit appreciated.
Is anyone still in search of a Tek 8560 w/ a Tek 8540 Z80 development chassis and one or two color Tek terminals?
dave_m
Veteran Member
I imagine there will be people who want a system like that. Especially if the TNIX operating system is running on it, and the various software tools for the Z80 ICE are installed.
-Dave
-Dave
SunSpotter
Experienced Member
Are they really that desirable? I had the opportunity to buy one last year via a scrapper I know, but I was really only interested in selling it, and things didn't work out with the buyer I was talking to. I think the scrapper kept the hard drive and floppy drive because he thought they were amusing, but everything else is gone now sadly. If I had known other people were looking for it, I might have put an ad out for it.
dave_m
Veteran Member
They would be wanted only by hobbyists now that used the development system in the 1980's. Back then it was used for serous microprocessor software development and debug of 8 and early 16 bit processors at the assembly language level. I used it for development of a Zilog Z8002 embedded system. It worked very well. But to be useful, the full complement of software tools (assemblers, loaders for the target system) that run on the 8560 (LSI-11 system) and the In-Circuit-Emulation hardware and software that runs in the 8640 Integration Unit would have to be found also. Probably most 8560 systems found now have dead hard drives and no backup software on floppies or tape. Perhaps the TNIX operating system still exists in some archive. Years ago I found an 8640 Integration Unit on ebay, but that's as far as I ever got.