Daves Old Computers - CUBIX Information

In the mid 80's I designed a little 6809 based computer system, including the hardware and all software. The operating system is called CUBIX, and may be of interest to anyone who wants to build up small homebrew computer. Here is some information to consider:

• The system is designed to give high functionality with minimal hardware - you can build a completely operational CUBIX system with a fairly small handful of parts. (I have built working CUBIX systems in a single afternoon).

• CUBIX is designed to be very portable - it can handle pretty much any I/O devices and disk geometry, and you can even change to new devices or redefine the disk geometry "on the fly". The system is so portable, that many system ports can be done from nothing more than the ROM image (I provide a detailed porting document).

• CUBIX itself occupies the better part of an 8K ROM, and provides a nice file system, a command line "shell" (including a good selection of build in commands and "script/batch" files), and over 100 system calls/services.

• There are a couple dozen applications and utilities, which include:

  • All the standard file and system maintenance utilities
  • Several editors, including a fairly decent one which operates line by line or full-screen visual. (The system includes a TTY specification subsystem which allows you to taylor the screen oriented programs to pretty much any terminal.)
  • HELP : A vax/vms like help command, which provides interactive documentation to all commands, applications and utlities.
  • ASM : 6809 assembler
  • RAID : A fairly powerful 6809 debugger.
  • BASIC : A BASIC interpreter
  • C : A complete implementation of my Micro-C compiler (in fact the 6809 was the first target for the compiler).
  • FORTH : A very fast FORTH which compiles to directly executable 6809 machine code instead of threaded lists.
  • MAPL : A little APL system.
  • SIM80 : An 8080 simulator - allowed me to run most of the code I had written for my Altair on CUBIX (I included on the disk as examples, an 8080 BASIC interpreter, and an 8080 CHESS program)
  • Lots more...

• The system is quite mature/stable - I used it as my main computer for several years, and there has been a small base of other users. (At one time I sold the software as a commercial product).

• The system is very well documented. The main documents are:

  • CUBIX system users guide
  • CUBIX system programming manual
  • CUBIX porting guide
  • Separate documents for all of the major applications.

  The distribution "documents" diskette, as a 360k 5.25" disk which contains nothing but documentation, and it is completely full - not a single free sector.

• All source code, documentation and binaries are now freely available.

• I have provided schematics for a simple CUBIX system using a serial console, and matching sample drivers.

• I have done a PC based simulator for my original D6809 portable computer, which allows you to try the system out by running it (full functionality) on your PC. I also have a command to import/export individual files to/from the simuilator disk images, and you can use my ImageDisk program to transfer disk images back and forth between the simulator image files and physical CUBIX compatible diskettes.

Although it would be considered a "toy system" by modern 32/64 bit standards, a CUBIX system gives you a pretty powerful computer with minimal hardware, and can be a very rewarding small project (as a number of people have told me over the years). It also gives you a very unique system that you won't experience anywhere else.

I invite/encourage anyone who wants to experiencing building a small/useful computer "from the ground up" to check out the CUBIX system - Most of the material mentioned above can be found on my web site (See URL in sig) - go to the the "Dunfield 6809" computer under "Homebuilts".