[fpc-devel] FPC for Coldfire and 68K derivatives

[Michael Schnell]

On 02/14/2013 03:57 AM, Mike Salish wrote:
> At the moment the 68K versions still in production are all for control 
> applications in embedded systems. These chips use the CPU32 and more 
> recently the MCF5xxxx Coldfire architecture. For MCF there are some 
> sources of small and cheap demo boards (netgear, Arcturus  I know of). 
> IMO Coldfire is the only viable path for future development that can 
> see any practical use. And I think MCF code should run on the CPU32 as 
> well even though it will not use all the addressing modes of the CPU32.
>
I am using a "Fido" chip by Innovasic. Same is a really interesting 
upgrade to an 68332:
  - 66 MHz clock (4 times the 332)
  - full CPU 32 instruction set (plus a few extensions) with 5hardware 
threads (5 register sets and appropriate mechanism to switch between them)
  - four 8 bit I/O-coprocssors (code in dedicated RAM, not ROM)
  - internal fast execution RAM with mapping
  - a decent amount of internal RAM
  - 16 bit external bus usable for static RAM/ROM/IO and DDR
  - "endless"  life cycle by the guaranteed by Innovasic

It does have some queer glitches (e.g. the dbcc instruction does not 
work correctly in the internal execution RAM), but this usually can be 
overcome.

So 68K in CPU 32 flavor is not dead at all.

I'll be happy to test the fpc compiler (and RTL) output on our board 
done with this chip, once it is able to to CPU32 code.

-Michael