s, which has a fixed function, a PLD device has an undefined function at the time of manufacture. Before the PLD could be used in a circuit it had to be "burned" or programmed, much like a ROM. 

There were numerous early arrangements of this concept (ROAMs, PLA's etc.), but a company called Monolithic Memories (MMI) introduced a breakthrough device in 1978, the Programmable Array Logic or PAL. These devices had arrays of transistor cells arranged in a "fixed-OR, programmable-AND" plane that could be used to implement "sum-of-products" binary logic equations for each of the output pins in terms of the input pins. If required, they could also utilize either synchronous or asynchronous internal feedback circuits from the outputs.  These "PALs" were soon second sourced by National Semiconductor, TI and AMD.  What really got the concept going was the simultaneous introduction of a programming language to program/burn these PAL's.  The language was called PALASM.  This language allowed the user to configure the PAL essentially without any knowledge if it's internal workings.

MMI started with a 20 pin chip, AMD introduced a very flexible 24 pin chip the so called 22V10 which proved very successful. 

In 1985 Lattice Semiconductor significantly improved on the PAL concept by making the chips electrically programmable (like EEPROMS).  Until then all PALs had a one time "burn" or programming function.  If done wrong the PAL was useless.  These new electrically programmable chips were called GAL's.  GALs combine CMOS and electrically erasable (E²) floating gate technology to yield a high-speed, low-power logic device, they essentially replaced PAL's over time. In fact Lattice Semiconductor went on to acquired MMI.

Today Lattice and others have many more sophisticated and larger forms of these chips, but in general the technology has evolved into FPGA devices.  However the simple 16V8 and 22V10 chips are still found in millions of devices.

The GAL22V10
There are many types of GAL's available today.  Very common are 16V8's, 20V8's and 22V10's.   The first two digits refer to the total number of programmable pins, the second the number of programmable inputs.  Since these chips are so inexpensive we will overkill, and concentrate on the 22V10.  If required we can just ignore any unused pins.  Here is what the chip looks like:-
        
A few points to keep in mind with this chip. 
1. While any of the 22 pins can act as inputs or output pins, pins 1-11 and  13 can only behave as inputs.
2. If one or more outputs are to behave as "register" outputs, i.e. clocked or latched,  pin 1 is the clocking pin.
3. If one or more outputs are to utilize an OE control, pin 13 is the normal OE pin.
4. Unconnected, all pins have an internal active pull-up connection.
5. The chip is capable of very high speed operation (166MHz), is TTL compatible, able to sink 12 milli-amps per output pin.
6. The chip can not be programmed indefinitely. Lattice quotes 100 erase/write cycles and data retention in excess of 20 years.
7. Note the number of possible input equation values that use the OR statement for the output pins varies a lot.  They are as follows:-

         Pins 23 & 14 = 8  (OR's)
         Pins 22 & 15 = 10  (OR's)
         Pins 21 & 16 = 12  (OR's)
         Pins 20 & 17 = 14  (OR's)
         Pins 18 & 19 = 16  (OR's)

Remember the number of product terms indicated for each pin does not limit the AND statements, it limits only the number of OR statements.
 
Be carefull not to overload these pins.  Essentially for any one pin, there should be less than 8 to 16 lines of code (if you had a "+" on each line).
This is not normally a problem but you should be aware of it.  For large PALASM equations you can use one output pin as a temporary placeholder for a value used in a further pin output equation. Clearly the central pins 18 and 19 are used a lot.

 

Clearly for these chips to be of any use they need to be programmed.  Also you will need a "GAL Programmer".  There are a number of these available on the web.  They are not cheap, typically starting at $200.  If you are doing any serious S100 bus board construction you should get a unit that programs GAL's, PROMS and EEPROMS.  I have been using the Wellon V290:-
  
  
This unit can program almost any type of EPROM or EEPROM out there.  However I found that to program Lattice GAL22V10 (or GAL16V8) one must set the GAL type to Lattice and set the Erase, Program and Verify options on.  Be careful to match the selected GAL type/manufacture with your actual GAL chip.  A wrong combination will inactivate the GAL immediatly.  I used Lattice 22V10 GAL's from Jameco (#39159). 

PALASM
All GAL's (and PAL's) are programmed with a file whose extension is .JED.  There appears to be an earlier version of the .JED file format which programs like Opel produce.  However at least for the Wellon programmer, .JED files generated by that MSDOS program did not program any of my GAL's correctly.  I wasted a lot of time on this until I found out that the MSDOS program PALASM4 yielded properly programmed 22V10 GAL's. 
 
The MSDOS program PALASM4 is widely available on the web. You can download it from here (or from the bottom of this page).  The program was (and probably still is) provided by AMD.  The manual which they refer to as the MACHXL Software's user Guide  can be obtained here.  As best I can tell, all the MACHXL menu commands, formats, etc. are identical to the PALASM4 commands. AMD a while back renamed all their PAL and GAL chips MACH1xx, MACH2xx, MACH3xxx, MACH4xx etc.  However the program still recognizes the old PAL names as well in the program line that specifies the chip type (see below).   I will not describe the PALASM  language commands themselves -- they are very simple and are well described in the manual.

The PALASM download describe above is contained on three 1.44MB floppy disks, (see bottom of this page for a download).  If you run it on an old PC it should install relatively simply on a hard drive if you use MSDOS.  However it would really be nice to run it on a modern Windows 7 or 8 (64 bit), or similar system.    There are probably a number of ways to do this, but I really like a Windows program called DOSBOX which allows you run almost any DOS program in a modern Windows environment.  DOSBOX is very popular with Gamers and is easy to install.  It can be downloaded from here (or the bottom of this page).

DOSBOX comes up with Z: as its root directory.  Normally you will assign a folder for your DOS programs. You use the "Mount" command to do this.  I will place it on my F: drive in a new folder in the root directory called DOSBOX:-

Mount f F:\DOSBOX

Then CD F:
 
This will bring you to what MSDOS thinks is the root F: drive.
We need to place the PALASM program with its sub-directories in its own folder, so make one

MKDIR F:\DOSBOX\PALASM

Download and expand the complete PALASM_C.rar file (see below) to this folder.  There will be a number of sub-folders in this folder.

Before we run PALASM we first need to set a path command for it.  DOSBOX has a special way to implement the MSDOS AUTOEXEC.BAT file when it boots up.  On your windows system its called something like "dosbox-0.74.conf" and is found at:-

{system drive}:\Users\{username}\AppData\Local\DOSBox\

This is a notepad compatible file, scroll down to the bottom and add:-
 
[autoexec]
# Lines in this section will be run at startup.
# You can put your MOUNT lines here.
mount F F:\dosbox

REM F:\DOSBOX\PALASM\ PALASM4 Environment Setup
PATH F:\DOSBOX\PALASM\EXE;F:\;"%PATH;C:\DOSBOX\PALASM4\EXE"
SET PALASM=F:\PALASM\

F:
CD F:\PALASM

Save and close the file.

Now when you launch DOSBOX you will end up in the PALASM directory.  Type:-

PALASM

It should look something like this.
  
      
The program is fairly straightforward. I keep my S100 bus .PDS and .JED files in a folder called \PALASM\S100.  I actually find it easier to edit a file with windows Notepad, save it and then compile it with PALASM rather than use the PALASM editor.  You use the F10 key a lot with this program. The program has an extensive error checking component. If there is any format error in the starting .PDS file, errors will be listed and no .JED file will be produced.

Let us take a simple example of how we can condense a few 74LSxx circuits into a single GAL.
  
This is a common circuit we have often used to activate 8 and 16 bit data buffers for R/W on to the S100 bus.  In the case of our ISA to S100 bus converter board a single GAL can handle the job:-
  
In fact a few extra functions are also added.

The relevant ABC.PDS file required to generate the ABC.JED file is here:-

This page was last modified on 01/11/2021