> Dave McGuire wrote:
> 
	>On April 28, Carlini, Antonio wrote:
	>> 	The MicroVAX II was clocked at 40MHz (IIRC) and had a cycle
time
	>> 	of 200ns (no cache needed since main memory was able
	>> 	to meet this).
	>> 
	>  I had to think twice before disagreeing with Antonio...but as I
recall
	>the 40MHz oscillator on a MicroVAX-II CPU board is passed through a
	>flip-flip to divide it by 2 before being used.  All of the docs
I've
	>ever seen have always said that the 78032 chip is clocked at 20MHz,
	>and the onboard oscillator is definitely 40MHz (because I've
replaced
	>a few with 50MHz oscillators)...if I get motivated enough I'll go
grab
	>a board and try to find that flip-flip, but I'm very sure that the
	>processor is actually run at 20MHz.

	The 40MHz was just from memory but now I've gone and
	looked. However, few of the manuals I have mention the
	gory details of the KA630 (the manuals from that era seemed
	to oriented to explaining jumpers and suchlike rather than
	details of how the modules worked).

	(I'm curious which docs you have that mention a clock
	frequency ... I had a hard time finding any in the uvax II
	tech manuals of the era).

	The 78032 User Guide indicated that
	the CLKI signal could range from a cycle time of 25ns to
	250ns (i.e. 40MHz down to 4MHz).

	None of the various uVAX/VS II hardware manuals mentioned
	very much about the KA630 board itself. (If only I had
	a KA630 UG ...).

	I finally found a reference in DTJ No. 6, which deals
	exclusively with the MicroVAX II (and is sadly from the period
	before they were published online).

	In the first article, which discusses the 78032 chip,
	the clock input is stated to be 40MHz.
	From that the chip produces (internally) eight 25ns clock 
	phases that control its timing (hence the 200ns CPU cycle).

	The third article, which discusses the KA630 module,
	states that the CLKI signal is 40MHz. The chip halves
	this to produce a CLKO signal for the rest of the
	board running at 20MHz.

	While I have this journal open, I should clarify that
	although the board runs at a microcycle speed of
	200ns as I claimed earlier,  memory cycles take 
	two microcycles so the memory timing is 400ns.

	Over the time that I have been gathering data about
	VAXen, I've found plenty of conflicting information.
	Usually this is performance related stuff but clocks
	do sometimes fall into that category too. For example,
	according to one of the VAX 4000 Technical Information
	manuals I've just pulled off the shelf, the KA694
	(VAX 4000-705A CPU module) runs at 444MHz !!!
	and achieves a cycle time of 9ns. I don't doubt that
	there is a 444MHz clock somewhere (possibly inside
	the chip after it has multiplied up the supplied
	clock) but clearly its just used because it was
	more convenient to have a high clock and divide
	by four to generate the necessary timing signals.
	I suppose marketing wanted to quote the highest
	number they could get away with! 

	CPU cycle times are generally a better measure
	of what is really going on. 

	Oddly enough, if we turn cycle times of 200ns
	(UVAX II) and 90ns (VS 3100-30) into
	"frequencies" we end up with 5MHz and
	11.1MHz so for the VS3100-30 Dennis was 
	spot on in one sense. Given that the 78032
	takes in 40MHz and spits out 20MHz, that 
	figure could be defended and may have been 
	quoted in a manual too ... where did you
	find it?

	Antonio