Luxor ABC
ABC 1600  (1981)
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Luxor ABC-1600

The Luxor ABC 1600 was a personal computer from Luxor that was built around the Motorola 68008 processor, diverging from the Z80 based computers from the previous ABC computers.

This machine was UNIX based, and ran ABCenix, a UNIX clone developed by DNIX. The computer had monochrome graphics with a maximum resolution of 1024x768 and standard came with a 5.25" 640kB FDD, and a 13MB HDD built in. Buyers could also opt for models with a 40 or a 80MB hard drive.

The machine had 2 RS232C ports, 4 expansion slots, a TV out and a monitor connector and a printer port.

CPU - The Motorola 68000

The Motorola 68000 is a 16/32-bit microprocessor that was first released in 1979. It was widely used in computers and other electronic devices during the 1980s and early 1990s. The 68000 was known for its advanced architecture, which included a 32-bit internal bus and a 24-bit address bus, allowing it to access up to 16 megabytes of memory. This made it more powerful than many other processors of its time, such as the Intel 8086 and Zilog Z80. It was also designed to be highly modular and expandable, with a large number of on-chip and off-chip peripherals.

Some of the most famous and successful computers that used the 68000 was the Commodore Amiga and the Atari ST, both of which were popular in the home and personal computer markets. Additionally, it was also used in workstations, such as the Sun 3 and Apollo DN3000, and in a wide variety of embedded systems and industrial control systems. The 68000 was also used in the Macintosh, the first model of the Macintosh was powered by a Motorola 68000 CPU. The processor was eventually succeeded by the 68020 and 68030, which offered improved performance and additional features.

The 68000 has a 32-bit instruction set, with 32-bit registers and a 16-bit internal data bus. The address bus is 24-bit and does not use memory segmentation, making it easier to address memory. There are three ALU's (Arithmetic Logic Unit), two for calculating addresses, and one for data, and the chip has a 16-bit external address bus.

The 68000 architecture was expanded with 32-bit ALUs, and caches. Here is a list with some 680x0 versions and their major improvements:

  • 68010 - Virtual memory support
  • 68020 - 32-bit ALU & Instruction Cache
  • 68030 - On-Chip MMU, 2x 256 byte cache
  • 68040 - 2x 4K Cache, 6 stage pipeline, FPU
  • 68LC040 - No Floating Point Unit (FPU)
  • 68060 - 2x 8K Cache, 10 stage pipelinet

Technical Details
Released
1981
Country
Sweden
Brand
Luxor
Type
Luxor ABC
Name
ABC 1600
CPU Class
68000
CPU
Motorola 68008 @8MHz
Memory
RAM: 1MB
ROM: 16kB
Sound Chip
unknown
Sound
unknown
Display Chip
unknown
Display
73x80 text
80x25 text
1024x768 1bpp graphics
Best Text
unknown
Best Color
Color in text mode
Mono Graphics
Graphics
1024x768
System OS
ABCenix
Storage
13
40 or 80MB HDD
Original Price
47125 SEK
External Links 🌐
Wikipedia: Motorola 68000 CPU Family
WikiPedia page on the Motorola 68000 series of processors