M.U.M.M. - a micro-controlled universal message multiplexer

Based on the Motorola 6800, this multiplexer is designed to provide a microprocessor development tool in the specific environment of a high- energy physics laboratory. The basic philosophy of this device is to allow communication of a target (prototype) processor with a host computer under control of a human operator. The host can be an experimental online computer or any remote machine with a time-sharing network. It is thus possible to speed up design and debugging of a physics application program by taking advantage of the sophisticated resources usually available in a computer centre (powerful editor, large disk space, source management via 'Patchy', etc.). In addition to the classical cross-macroassembler, a loader is available on the host for down-line loading binary code, via the multiplexer, into the prototype memory. Such a scheme is easily extended to the communication of any host interactive processing program with a data acquisition microprocessor, and provides the latter with a convenient and easily portable extension of its computing power. (8 refs).