NCD 88k/19c Specific notes (Under construction)

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Like all classical X-terminals, these devices are fossils from the early 1990s, when the combination of multi-user UNIX-server plus (relatively) cheap graphical X-desktop was popular. The NCD 88K is remarkable insofar as it has a Motorola 88100 RISC processor inside, which is a rarety by itself. This CPU architecture, though brilliant at its time, disappeared in the early 1990s. Unfortunately this happened somewhat before the WWW became popular, so documentation for this CPU as well as for the machines built around it is very hard to find.
The NCD 88K appeared in early 1992, and probably due its age it has some odd features, such as the 26-pin graphics outlet and a DB9 serial mouse adapter. Fortunately I found some of those serial PC mouse leftovers of that era and somehow I could also spot the 26-pin-to-RGB converter cable shown below.
The box booted into its boot monitor without problem. I could also spot the appropriate boot file on the Web, but configuration took me at least a weekend until I noticed it needed a properly setup NFS export on the host :-(
Since I also own several Motorola 88K server boxes it would be attractive to set up an "88K-only" corner, i.e. those 88K machines plus the NCD 88k as the graphical interface.

Pixx

ncd88k ncd88k.inside ncd88k.rear

RAM

Requires 72-pin PS/2. The machines RAM configuration is unique insofar as it reflects the 88K CPU architecture, i.e. code and data are separate.
My box has 16MB code RAM in slot J7 (J6 is empty) and 16MB data RAM each in J9 and J10 (J8 is empty).

Setup

  1. Install NCDware on some UNIX host. The 88K terminals are supported until Version 3.5. Note that the terminal will expect a configuration file named after its IP address in hexadecimal, e.g. /tftpboot/configs/C0A80138 for the address 192.168.1.56.
  2. Plug in all peripherals. You'll probably need a true serial mouse, an adapter DB9<->PS/2 did not work.
  3. Power on and the terminal will automatically boot.
    For initial configuration press Esc, this will get you into the boot monitor, if so desired.
    A ? will print some help information. Setup lets you define the keyboard language (back with another Setup).
    I could not find other means of early configuration, no idea whether this should be so or if my box is broken.
  4. Manually boot with 
    bt <bootfile>  <terminal IP address> <host IP address>
    e.g. 
    bt /tftpboot/Xncd19c 192.168.1.56 192.168.1.42
    5. It will load the bootfile via tftp, then will look for its configuration file(s) via NFS. Messages like 
    unable to read config file
    indicate that maybe there's something wrong with NFS access.

Last updated: 12-Mar-2009, M.Kraemer