Implementation of an Intel 8080 Microprocessor Development System Using Existing Minicomputers

The INTEL 8080 has become one of the two most widely used microprocessors (μP's) at CERN, the other being the MOTOROLA 6800. Even though this is the case, there has been up to date only rudimentary facilities available for aiding the development of application programs for this μP. An ideal development system is one which has a sophisticated editing and filing capability, an assembler/compiler, and access to the μP application. In many instances one also requires access to a PROM programmer as the application may utilize only PROMs for program storage. With these thoughts in mind, an INTEL 8080 μP development system was implemented in the PS Division at CERN. While any other minicomputer would be suitable, this system utilizes a PDP-11/45 minicomputer as the editing and file-handling machine, and an MCS 8/ MOD 80 μP development system for assembling, PROM programming, and debugging user programs at run time. The two computers are linked by a CAMAC crate system, which provides the means of access to μP applications in CAMAC and the interface of the development system to other applications.