Since 1975, the mini-level computer system called X77, has been designed and constructed using Intel 3000 series bit-slice microprogrammable microprocessors by Project Micro Laboratory at KAIS.
The system has the organization of dual processing system, one is the main processor consisting of X77 CPU and 16 bit datapath memory and the other is the I/O processor consisting of Z80A microcomputer system with its own 8 bit data path memory and peripherals such as console, diskette driver, line printer, and CCD camera etc.,. The two system are tightly coupled through common memory, interrupt and hardware semaphore techniques. The system is designed to support internal (main operation) and external (mainly I/O operation) operations.
The monitor program for the X77 system was implemented, which has versatile features such as display and substitute memory, examine and modify registers, execute user program and break points and disassembly of the machine codes etc. as discussed in the text.
The system softwares including the diskette operating procedures, the concurrent I/O task manage procedures and the various language compilers are to be implemented as the future research topics.
