Mid '80s uP from Western Electric/AT&T -- WE212
From: Steve Bour (sbour_at_acxiom.com)
Date: 06/25/04
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Date: 25 Jun 2004 07:53:53 -0700
I have recently revived my interest in microprocessors (goes all the
way back to an Altair 8800 kit I purchased and built in '76). Having
a general interest in electronics starting in my childhood, but also
having a lot of experience in software from my career, I feel this
group might be one I'd like to get to know better (I gather there are
a few of you out there who are also in their (f-mumble)'s, age-wise
:-).
Anyway, I recently acquired an old communications rack produced by
AT&T (containing 8 9600 bps DSUs, I believe, just sitting in the
warehouse gathering a thick layer of dust), and from the ICs it
appears to be of an early-to-mid-80s vintage, prime time for early
8-bit microprocessors. And, to my delight, after examining the
boards, I see lots of goodies such as 8255 PIOs and 8253 SIOs (going
by memory, might have been 8251s, whatever Intel called them). And,
the cards have other goodies such as nice little bat switches and
4-character *smart* LED displays (the 16-segment ones that can display
the 64-character upper-case ASCII subset). And there are a typical
mixture of 74xx series chips to glue it all together. But, since this
is WE gear, a lot of the parts have internal Western Electric part
numbers of the style "WEnnn". Some of the parts have both WE and
"generic" numbers, which helps a lot, but the 40-pin uP chips (assumed
because of their wiring to the 8255s, ROMs, etc) have only the WE part
number "WE212". I have found exactly *one* reference to this CPU on
Google (http://www.antiquetech.com/companies/AT&T.htm). I was hoping
it was an 8085 or a Z80 or friends based on the "common" I/O chips
used, but my preliminary wire tracing from the CPU to other "known"
chips on the board doesn't reveal a match (yet).
I'm hoping one of you out there might be familiar with this chip;
there are several per DSU, I think 3, nice ceramic ones, and I'd be
inclined to "donate" one or two to a good cause, especially for some
pinout or other info that might be available (though this would not be
a requirement).
Sorry for the long-winded message -- and pointers to better places to
ask will be gratefully received. My interest is hobby-related, not
commercial, if that matters, and I'm certaintly open to share what I
know, for what it's worth :-)
--Steve
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