John Black is a name familiar to many VMEbus Systems magazine readers. John was the first editor of VMEbus Systems; serving as the magazine’s “spiritual leader” from July 1985 to May 2001. John was at Motorola during the time that company was working on VME, and left Motorola to help found this magazine. John is also one of the founders of OpenSystems Publishing (publisher of VMEbus Systems), and to this day he maintains a financial relationship with the company. After he left the magazine, John completed his PhD and is now a faculty member at Arizona State University. Editor Chris Ciufo recently interviewed John; edited and excerpted remarks follow.
In 1981, Wayne Fischer was working as Motorola’s 68000 microprocessor expert for Silicon Valley and became involved with the VME strategy as part of Motorola’s plans for expanding the new CPU’s market. As Wayne recalls, “VME was a means to an end, not an end unto itself.” Wayne is credited for taking some of the best attributes of Futurebus and spearheading the effort to evolve VME64 into VME64x. And ironically, while the 68000 is mostly gone, VME and its ecosystem are thriving and preparing for another 25 years of growth – this time with switched serial fabrics as the next bus.
Craig MacKenna was chief technical representative from Mostek in the discussions with Motorola and Signetics that led to the VMEbus. He was later the designer of Mostek’s first VME processor board. After that, he “hung in” through several years of tedious standardization efforts that led to IEEE 1014 and IEC 821, which are official specs describing the VMEbus. Craig points readers to Wikipedia’s description of VME’s history.
Lyman (Lym) Hevle was in marketing at Motorola Microsystems when VMEbus was introduced. He was also the founder of the VMEbus International Trade Association (VITA). Contributing editor Jerry Gipper, an old friend from the early VME days, recently reminisced with Lym. Edited and excerpted comments follow.
John Black is a name familiar to many VMEbus Systems magazine readers. John was the first editor of VMEbus Systems; serving as the magazine’s “spiritual leader” from July 1985 to May 2001. John was at Motorola during the time that company was working on VME, and left Motorola to help found this magazine. John is also one of the founders of OpenSystems Publishing (publisher of VMEbus Systems), and to this day he maintains a financial relationship with the company. After he left the magazine, John completed his PhD and is now a faculty member at Arizona State University. Editor Chris Ciufo recently interviewed John; edited and excerpted remarks follow.
