[geeks] Seagate vendor-unique data?

[Lex Landa]

On Thu, 2012-02-02 at 20:43 +0100, Jochen Kunz wrote:

> It was quite common for some VAXen that the peripherals had more
> horsepower then the actual main CPU. E.g. the RQDX3 MFM disk controller
> used in low end QBus VAXen and PDP-11s is driven by a T11. (A PDP-11
> microcontroller.) IIRC the RA90 disks are controlled by a NS32K CPU...

I wasn't fortunate enough to have access to a VAX when I was learning
all this stuff (that'd be about five years ago, then :) but I remember
the Commodore 1541 disk drive, which had its own CPU and OS.  Then,
there's the Tandy 102 disk/video expansion unit, which is more like a
separate computer (I wish I'd bought one of those) and although you
can't program it, the Amiga 500's keyboard has a 6502.

Here's where I veer wildly off-subject...

Perhaps I should take my washing-machine apart and see whether it has
anything useful on its motherboard?  A friend of mine has a very
high-tech fridge with a glowing blue OLED front panel.  He demonstrated
its functions - how it could produce crushed ice on demand, or cubed
(couldn't do a square root though.. terrible joke) but when I asked him
what expansion options it had, he said 'none' - you can't even talk to
it via RS232.  Methinks something's got to be done about that (it didn't
even have Bluetooth!).

Lex