LINUX HARDWARE

After the 8-bit computing boom of the ’80s, enthusiasts moved to more capable 16-bit systems, able to run Linux. Mike Bedford investigates.

The Motorola 68000 series brought 16/32-bit computing to the home and, with the introduction of the 68030, Linux became a possibility.

The early 1980s marked a sea change in the world of computers. Thanks to the likes of the BBC Micro and the ZX Spectrum, the dream of owning and programming a computer turned into a possibility. And that possibility became a reality for millions. The vast majority of these home computers were based on 6502 or Z80 processors. Even if Linux had been around at the time, though, it wouldn’t have found its way on to these machines because of their 8-bit processors, minimal memory capacity, and lack of a hard disk. As the decade drew to a close, though, new machines were targeting the computer enthusiast. These machines had what it took to support Linux, and that operating system would soon become available.

Here we look at how Linux migrated to the home, starting in the early ’90s, and at the second generation of home computers that facilitated that move. In the main, we’re looking at machines that were empowered by the Motorola 68000 family processors. However, these weren’t the only computers used in the home that were able to run Linux. We’re mixing our terminology here, though, so let’s explain.

Our main theme in this article is home computers in their heyday, but that’s not necessarily the same as computers that are used in the home. A home computer is one that was designed, first and foremost, for use in the home by enthusiasts. And while some of them were used for serious applications such as word processing, they were, in the main, intended to help technically-minded people learn about computers. These machines first appeared in the ’70s but were hugely expensive. They became affordable in the ’80s, and largely died out in the ’90s. Towards the end of this period, PCs started to be used in the home and, for some users, they filled the same niche as home computers. They were designed mainly to address the business market, though, so we’re not going to discuss them here. However, we did look at Linux on x86 processors, by far the most common chip to have been used in PCs, in the first part of this series.

There are several Amiga and Atari ST emulators online, like this one at http://estyjs.azurewebsites.net,although most are games orientated.

CREDIT: NaSH, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Motorola_68030_32-bit_microprocessor.jpg

Introducing the Motorola 68000

The story of Intel’s progression from 4-bit through to 32-bit and eventually 64-bit processors is well known. In fact, we examined the timeline in the first part of this series to see where the 80386 fitted in, that being the processor that gave birth to Linux. But in those early days, there was another semiconductor manufacturer that was following a somewhat similar path. And we’re not talking about AMD, because it mainly adhered to the x86 approach, as pioneered by Intel. Instead, the company we have in mind didn’t follow Intel’s lead, but developed its own ISA. That company was Motorola. Today we associate that name with mobile phones, but back in the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s, it was a major manufacturer of microprocessors. In particular, alongside Intel, Motorola was one the two main supporters of the CISC (Complicated Instruction Set) philosophy. This, of course, differentiated Motorola and Intel from the advocates of the RISC (Reduced Instruction Set) approach, which we delved into last month.