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A little about the SNI RM200 workstation

This article has been submitted to the competition .

SL project (the author plays in the competition under a pseudonym)

In this short article, I want to talk about one unusual computer, inside which there is a MIPS architecture processor. The car in the article is not the well-known SGI, but something else. A really little known car. There is very little information on the net about it, let alone the software, although it was released by the everlasting Siemens.

The article will contain a short description with a photo of this very interesting and unusual machine.

So, we meet Siemens Nixdorf (hereinafter simply - SNI) RM200. Single-processor workstation of RM architecture. There were also RM300, RM400, RM600, but these are already machines of a different level and they are multiprocessor. Running a little ahead - the RM600 comes with its own operating system distribution kit. I have it somewhere.

A commercial version of Unix called Reliant / Sinix is ​​installed on this machine. It is also possible to install Windows NT and knee-type Linux products.

But even finding a machine of RM architecture, you will have to face the difficulties of installing an operating system.

And the thing is, few people have heard the name Reliant / Sinix, and this is the native operating system from SNI, which runs on this machine. The difficulty is that it is not online. Maybe there is a distribution kit somewhere, but for some reason it is not. Since Windows NT is running, it seems that you can find a version for MIPS and enjoy the machine. But here, too, an ambush. The installation will fail if a Reliant / Sinix was previously installed on the machine. To install an operating system from Microsoft, you need to switch the RM200 boot loader using a special floppy disk to boot Windows NT. This floppy disk is also rare, but someone has it. However, it is better to proudly leave than to listen to reproaches and humiliation. But let's not talk about it. I do not consider Linux, because in my entire life it did not work out with it, did not grow together, and I have a persistent prejudice about this operating system.

1. Description of the SNI RM200 machine

Machine configuration:

Processor - IDT 79RV4700-133G (133 MHz)

RAM - 128 MB (expandable then 512 MB)

Video - Embedded Cirrus Logic GD5436-I-QC-C

Network - built-in 10 Mbps

SCSI-based disk subsystem.

CD-ROM

HDD - 4.5GB

Streamer - Tandberg TDC3820

PCI - 3 slots

EISA - 2 slots

Power supply - 200 W

The body of the machine is made in the classic Desktop format, that is, when the system unit is placed on the table, there is a monitor on top. But the thickness of the steel of the case allows it to be used as a shelter from small arms, if you put the system unit on the end.

The front panel has design delights in the form of a two-section door made of transparent plastic in a bluish tint. Hidden behind the door are FDDs, CD-ROMs and a tape drive. Also behind the door are the power button for the machine and indicators for power and disk activity, and they are visible when the door is closed. This door is considered a design delight for the reason that the power button is behind it. The lock on the front panel is not a machine lock, not a door lock, but a lock on the upper case cover. Why it was placed on the front panel, I do not understand. And yet the car looks great: it is not overloaded with elements and does not look like the work of Uncle Liao. Possesses its own easily recognizable style. SUN had a similar approach, you can immediately see its cars in a heap of rubbish from afar.

If you look at the rear of the RM200, you can see a typical set of connectors.

All connectors are labeled on a separate nameplate:

1 VGA output, 2 COM ports. 1 LPT port, 2 onboard TP and AUX network card connectors, 2 PS / 2 mouse and keyboard connectors, 1 SCSI connector. Despite the fact that there is only one HDD inside the machine, you can connect several more external ones. Still, there is SCSI.

As you can see, this machine is made in France. It turns out that Siemens had a plant in the country of Napoleon.

2. What's inside?

Remove the housing cover and see a fairly tight layout of the machine, nothing dangles and everything is secured properly with all kinds of clamps and clamps. Without further disassembly, only a piece of the motherboard with the processor is visible. If there was an expansion board, then this would not be visible either. By the way, full-size boards can be installed - 2 pcs. EISA and 2 pcs. PCI.

200 W power supply. Manufactured in Taiwan. Judging by the number of free molecules, BP is universal and most likely used in other models of computers. CD-ROM drive and floppy drive, under which you can see a piece of HDD.

Before we disassemble the car further, and look at its insides, I want to draw your attention to one detail. These are the stickers on all parts of the car.

But these stickers are on all drives. So if you come across such a machine, you can easily find out whether the original equipment is original or something has already changed. From this it follows that all components are tested, and only after that they are installed in the machine.

Removing the basket with FDD and HDD, we get access to the motherboard. The motherboard is abundantly dotted with microcircuits, there are also unsoldered ones, as well as an unsoldered connector is visible. The motherboard itself is rather unusual. But later, more on that later.

In the upper left corner is not a spare part from this car, it is a correction mechanism. From a completely different sphere, I just used it as a photo stand and got into the frame by accident when it was no longer needed. An extremely funny thing, though.

HDD cage and FDD

The FDD and HDD cage, there is nothing special to say about it, the piece of steel is quite thick and durable, it also fixes the riser. Again, what is the difference between a proprietary system unit? And the fact that a plastic protection was pulled over the upper edge so as not to cut your fingers when replacing expansion cards. Another thing is strange - there is only one HDD. This is more in line with conventional PCs. Indeed, in other similar machines of non-PC architecture, there are usually two HDDs. Maybe because it's a workstation? But what about SUN? But that is another story.

The car is equipped with a TEAC FDD, model FD-235HF, the Datasheet can be downloaded from the link .

The most detailed guide to the drive. Full description, including waveforms. It is a pity that there is no scheme.

CD-ROM and tape drive basket

The basket for CD-ROM and tape drive is welded to the body and cannot be removed. In principle, a typical solution.

Streamer

Tandberg TDC3820 streamer. QIC format, supports 150 MB, 250 MB, 320 MB and 525 MB cassettes. In practice, Reliant / Sinix only offered one 525MB option. I think why is it so? Maybe a firmware specifically for the RM200? Judging by the external state of the insides, the streamer was not used much.

Cassette for Tandberg TDC3820 streamer for as much as 150MB. And here is a small sign to make it easier to find the right cassettes.

DC6150 - 150MB

DC6250 - 250MB

DC6320 - 320MB

DC6525 - 525MB

By the way, there is an error in TH99, it says that the DC6150 is 155 MB, but in reality there is 150 MB on it. What, in fact, can be seen in the photo.

Power Supply

200 Watt power supply. Manufactured by Minebea Electronics Ltd in Thailand. All its characteristics are visible on the plate. A distinctive feature of this PSU is that the fan speed is regulated depending on the load. Therefore, the noise of the fan does not annoy how much in vain, unlike conventional power supplies of that time.

Riser Card

Almost all desktop cases have risers, and this one is no exception. There are 2 EISA slots on the front side, and ISA boards can also fit perfectly into them. Here EISA confuses me. After all, to configure the board you need an ECU, and this software works on x86 machines. How, then, is EISA configured here?

Top 2 PCI slots. The chassis supports the installation of full-size expansion cards.

I liked this riser because it says what car it is from. I don’t remember that it was like that on others. As a result, you find a bunch of them in the closet, and try to guess which car is which. Most often because of this, he immediately flies into the trash can. But the blue 4-pin connector is not signed, and one can only guess why it is. I have no documentation on this machine.

Riser Card

The same riser, but a rear view. There is only one PCI slot, into which a board resembling a terminator is inserted. Somewhere I saw a similar solution, but for what, I do not understand. Line impedance matching? But why?

Reminds of xeon boards, terminators were inserted instead of the processor. The same was on the S370 server boards. There is such an S370 terminator lying somewhere.

Terminator board

Terminator board. Nothing fancy, just a handful of SMD resistors and capacitors.

Terminator board

He's behind. Everything is empty here.

Lithium battery

RTC battery. Lithium, soldered into the board, which means that prompt replacement is impossible. And the release date 01.96 hints that everything is sad: the battery is already 19 years old. So many do not live. For the sake of interest, I measured the voltage, almost fell. It turned out to be 3.72 volts. The battery is German, everything on it is written in non-Russian, that is, German. Here it is - real German quality. Battery type SL-350 3.6 V 1000 mAh

Datasheet for battery.

A jumper with the designations B.ON and B.OFF is visible under the battery, it is not clear at all what this can mean. It is clear that disconnects the battery, but how?

As an offtopic - in general, the name of such a product as a battery is incorrect. This is really a battery, which was written on Soviet batteries. But on the well-known flat battery, which many licked with their tongue and made a flashlight from a battery, a light bulb and electrical tape, it was written "battery", since it was an assembly of three elements.

Different connectors

All connectors are located in one place on the board, as a result, nothing gets in the way and cannot fall off, since they are equipped with latches. Uncommon solution.

RAM

The board has 8 slots for memory modules. There are 4 banks in total, modules are placed in pairs. The RM200 supports 512 MB of ECC corrected RAM. Now it costs 128 MB, and 4 more slots (2 banks) are free. Gold-plated contacts. It seems that in those days they did not spare immersion gold for electronic products. The slots are equipped with a RAM module eject button, which is much more convenient than the plastic lever on SUN boards. How many times have I broken these plastic levers ... But since the button is located on one side of the slot, you still need to remove the memory carefully so as not to bend the contacts from the opposite side

Chipset RM200

Schematic

Chipset RM200. In general, it is difficult to talk about him. And how do you know what the chipset is?

There are two Intel chips S82374EB and S82375EB. It is part of the i430LX Mercury Chipset, which was the first chipset for the Pentium processor. The I430LX Mercury was introduced in 1993. This part is just an EISA-PCI subsystem. But everything else seems to be hiding in the Altera PLM, and since they are in the cribs, if you have a programmer, you can read their contents. Who has a similar programmer? Maybe you should do it?

So, we have three CPLD chips: EPM7032LC44-6, EPM7064LC84-10, EPM7096LC68-10.

The first - 600 gates, 32 macro elements, 2 arrays of logic blocks, 36 I / O pins.

The second - 1250 gates, 64 macro elements, 4 arrays of logic blocks, 68 I / O pins.

The third - 1800 gates, 96 macroelements, 6 arrays of logic blocks, 76 I / O pins.

Near the processor there is a PLM GAL22V10C (array 132x44).

The chipset includes the PC87323VUL microcircuit, inside which there is a keyboard controller, an FDD controller, RTC, Super I / O, two UART ports, one parallel port, an IDE controller.

There is also a custom-made LSI L5A6390 microcircuit on the board. What's inside, one can only guess, since there is no data on it.

Near the video controller there is a 4 megabit AM29F040-120JC flash ROM. There is an assumption that the BIOS is hiding in it, but it is quite possible that this is the BIOS of the video controller. You need to read and watch what's there.

But then the question is - where is the BIOS hiding on this machine? Is it hardwired into PAL / GAL, or even ASIC?

Also, the cache of the second level, 312 KB - 2 MB, could be installed.

Datasheet on S82374EB (EISA System Component).

Datasheet on S82375EB (PCI-EISA Bridge).

Datasheet Altera Max 7000.

Datasheet GAL22V10C.

Datasheet PC87323VUL.

Datasheet AM29F040-120JC

Video controller

The video controller in RM200 is paid for, on the one hand, it saves us slots and reduces the size of the car, but on the other hand, eat what the developers of the machine gave, since there are no jumpers to disable it. The video controller is based on the well-known Cirrus Logic GD5436-I-QC-C. This SVGA controller to PCI bus supports 1024x768 screen resolution,

Datasheet GD5436

SCSI Controller

Almost always, in all non-PC architectures, HDDs and other drives are connected via the SCSI bus. This bus has ease of connection and a sufficient number of devices, which is enough for us for almost any case. After all, if IDE allows you to connect only two devices per channel, then SCSI - at least 7 pieces. You just need to remember about termination. By the way, SUN has a funny car with a standard D-SUB15 video output and an IDE disk subsystem.

The RM200 uses the 53C810A chip manufactured by SYMBIOS LOGIC. It is made in a 100-foot case, connects to the PCI bus and supports SCSI speeds of 5 MB in synchronous mode and 10 MB in asynchronous mode.

You can learn more about the microcircuit at the link below.

Datasheet 53C810A

NET controller

What is a Unix machine without a network? The RM200 is no exception. Contains a 10 Mbps network card soldered on the motherboard. It is, of course, convenient, saves slots, reduces the size of the machine, well, there is a network out of the box, you don't have to run around and look for where to get a network card. Everything you need is out of the box. The network card is based on the AMD AM79C970A chip. Supports two interfaces 10base-t and AUI.

In the photo above - the activity LEDs of the network card, just do not understand why they are not brought out? Why hide something?

The microcircuit is quite common and is connected to the PCI bus. I love that this machine makes the most of PCI.

Datasheet AM79C970A.

Differences and strangeness

An unusual feature of the RM200 is these two buttons, one of them with a quite understandable inscription RESET, which means reset. Everything would be fine, but you can press the button only by opening the case. This button is not available in normal operation. For sure, the gopher is not visible, but it is there. The second button labeled DEBUG puzzles at all, what kind of debugging can be? Why? What for? Only the documentation will answer this question.

LEDs

8 pieces of LEDs, arranged in a row, as seen from the markings - not in order. I have never seen such illumination on any computer. Most likely, these LEDs give out error codes, and in normal mode the snake runs at different speeds. An extremely unusual implementation, a kind of hardware easter egg. Although the LEDs are not much visible when looking through the perforation of the case cover.

Indication at start RM 200 before starting. When the PROM menu appears, there is a running fire on the indicators.

And here is what happens on the screen at the same moment. I apologize for the shaking, I took it off my hands, I don't have a tripod.

3. Processor

CPU

So the turn came to the processor. Actually, this car owes him. Here is a microscopic heatsink on the processor. It’s even somehow uncomfortable, there was a radiator on the 486, and then a bigger one, but here it’s like a blotch of some kind. The socket for the processor is not with zero effort, but the most common collet, and it takes considerable effort to pull out the processor. Even if the processor had been soldered, nothing would have changed. There is no point in changing.

IDT Orion 79RV4700-133G processor

Processor without heatsink, manufacturer IDT, processor model - Orion 79RV4700-133G, processor clock speed - 133 megahertz.

This is a 64-bit processor with a 5-stage pipeline, supply voltage 3.3 volts. First level cache - 16 + 16KB. The low-voltage version was produced in clock frequencies of 100, 133, 150, 175, 200 MHz.

Since no jumpers were found on the board, and the BIOS is dull, it was suggested that by replacing it with a faster processor, we would increase the machine's performance. The processor 79RV4700-150G was bought, the native one was quickly picked out, and instead of it a fresh and fast one was inserted. But on the screen, instead of 150 MHz, the sad 133 MHz was displayed. Not destiny, then.

Now theoretical research:

In the process of writing the article, I looked at the datasheet at the processor to find out what is there and where the clock is pushed.

The master clock is applied to leg J17 (circled in red in the picture). Now there should be 66 MHz, since the multiplier in the processor is 2.

The board quickly found an AV9155-02CW20 clock generator microcircuit.

According to the reference data, the following legs are needed:

18 - CPUx2

17 - CPU

20 - SCLK20

19 - SCLK21

11 - SCLK22

The first two legs are the 2x and 1x clock output. The second three legs set the actual clock frequency.

We look and understand that love has turned its back on me ... The desired 66 MHz is on leg 17. You can see on the board that leg 17 goes somewhere into the jungle of the interlayer space of the motherboard. 80 MHz is not available, because again this asterisk, which breaks fate after signing the loan agreement: it is written that only 5 V, and the processor is 3.3 V.

Made voltage measurements. Power supply AV9155-02CW20 5 V. 11 feet - 5V, 21 feet - 0V, 22 feet - 5V, which corresponds to the output frequency of 66 MHz. As confirmed by measurements, on leg 17 (2xCPU) - 67.08 MHz, and on the J17 leg of the processor 66.84 MHz.

But something I do not like this difference, and even multiplying by 4 what is on the 18th leg (CPU) does not come out what is on the processor. Most likely there is something in between. We can say that it has been unambiguously found out that multiplication by 2 is used in the 79RV4700-133G processor.

The plans for the future are to try to unsolder the legs of the clock generator IC and connect them so that the clock generator produces a higher frequency at the output. While this thing keeps from this - * 5V Only. I did not understand the purpose of these words. I can't say for sure the voltage levels on the clock generator and on the processor, since there are no correct probes for the oscilloscope. Maybe someone has an unnecessary 400 MHz probe for a Tektronix oscilloscope, at least one?

Datasheet 79RV4700-133G

Datasheet av9155-02cw20

4. Conclusion

That's all for now about the hardware of this machine. In the future, maybe something will be added. As far as I could, I told about this car. Much, of course, is missing, but then the article will creep to the size of a book. I don't think anyone would want to read this unscientific work.

If interested, I can write about installing Reliant / Sinix on RM200.

There are also other machines of this architecture: RM300, RM400, RM600, but they are even more rare.

For all comments and remarks on this article, I will be very grateful.

Bonus - Reliant / Sinix loading LED video:

Discuss the article in a specially created forum thread . This article has been submitted to the competition .

© Text, photos - SL project

© Iron Ghosts of the Past - 2015

Published on May 10, 2015

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