Luxor  ABC 1600
Previous System
luxor_abc1600
Next System

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.

Motorola 68000 CPU Family

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 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
Best Graphics 1024x768 System OS ABCenix Storage 13, 40 or 80MB HDD Original Price 47125 SEK
Related Systems
 
Luxor ABC
» 
ABC  1600 (1981)
Related Media
World Wide Web Links
 
Wikipedia: Motorola 68000 CPU Family
WikiPedia page on the Motorola 68000 series of processors