Strange 6502 device

[maniacminer]

I found a strange device in the bottom of a box of 6502 trainers, probably used to diagnose problems. I can't find anything useful and my Google-fu is outclassed... The device is called "Fairchild 72406C MICROPOD for 6502" - I have put a 6502 into the ZIF socket and plugged the pin header into a 6502 trainer and I can run programs as per usual, so it is "working", but what does it do and does anyone have any user manual/instructions for it?

[Dr Jefyll]

Welcome, maniacminer!

This 6502 trainer you mentioned, would it be the Unilab "Three Chip Plus" (an ultra bare-bones 6502 board) which you mentioned in your Introduce Yourself post? We'll have a better chance of helping if you can supply plenty of info about the trainer and the Micropod.

-- Jeff

[BigEd]

Looks like these Micropods were originally made by Solartron, who were perhaps acquired by Schlumberger, and now you see them after Fairchild got involved.

If we look for Solartron micropods, we start to get more information... see the attached, which are from two PDFs archived at World Radio History and one here on 6502.org
Electronics 1982-04-21 at World Radio History
Commodore Computing International 1983-02 at 6502.org
Wireless World 1984-06 at World Radio History

[maniacminer]

Dr Jefyll wrote:

Welcome, maniacminer!

This 6502 trainer you mentioned, would it be the Unilab "Three Chip Plus" (an ultra bare-bones 6502 board) which you mentioned in your Introduce Yourself post? We'll have a better chance of helping if you can supply plenty of info about the trainer and the Micropod.

-- Jeff

Not the Unilab board, this Micropod was in the bottom of a box of "Digiac 3000" system 6502 trainers, there are also Z80 and 8085 versions that I am aware of, I just have the 6502 boards and the accompanying Applications Boards, this link shows the system, I don't have the mounting box, unfortunately - https://t-lcarchive.org/lj-electronics-digiac-3000/

[maniacminer]

BigEd wrote:

Looks like these Micropods were originally made by Solartron, who were perhaps acquired by Schlumberger, and now you see them after Fairchild got involved.

Wow, thanks BigEd, that's lots of useful information. I do vaguely remember the disaster that was Schulmberger buying Fairchild, I didn't know about Solartron, but I did see that name come up when searching for 6502 Micropods - a whole article in June 1986 Wireless World. I have been fixing 6502 boards using a 'scope and logic analyzer so far, maybe this Micropod would have some use (if I had some instructions)

[BigEd]

I'm sure it would be useful! I've failed to find any documentation online, but I have found a seller who lists manuals without prices - might be worth calling them. Two documents relating to the 7201 Locator:
https://www.telford-electronics.co.uk/m ... hp?alpha=s
Solartron 7201 Locator Operator
Solartron 7201 Locator Specifications

Also maybe of interest, @hoglet here has a marvellous in-socket gadget and a related software project, if you can get a suitable FPGA board... which is presently difficult. But I think the software alone would be useful: if you use a cheap USB based logic analyser to capture databus activity, the protocol decoder can give you a full traced disassembly of what the CPU is doing.
https://github.com/hoglet67/AtomBusMon/wiki
https://github.com/hoglet67/6502Decoder/wiki

Perhaps see this thread over on stardot:
https://stardot.org.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=24009
or this post on this forum:
viewtopic.php?f=4&t=6965&p=90087#p90087

[SpaceCoaster]

Cool, my wife and I did some contract work for Solartron at that office in Farnborough. Power station turbine monitoring using DEC and HP Unix systems for data logging. Nice people. No 6502s in sight unfortunately.