[vcf-midatlantic] Revised, My take on "what is vintage computing"

[Neil Cherry]

On 12/21/20 8:11 PM, David Gesswein via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
> On Mon, Dec 21, 2020 at 02:17:50PM -0500, Neil Cherry via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
>>
>> I'd love to see more about things like the 4 bit computers and bit slicers. What is a bit slice
>> computer?
>>
> 
> "Bit slicing is a technique for constructing a processor from modules of
> processors of smaller bit width, for the purpose of increasing the word length."
> 
> The bit slice I have some knowledge of executed microcode the designer
> created to implement the instruction set desired or the microcode directly
> implemented the desired functionality for special hardware. Should be able
> to find more online.
> 
> Most use it for referring to machines using the couple chips intended for
> this purpose such as the AM290x. I thought it was neat that Tek used the
> 290x chips in the 4052 to make a faster upgrade of the 4051 which used a
> 6800. They made a faster 6800 than you could buy as a microprocessor. They
> also added new floating point instructions since it wasn't as fast as they
> hoped.
> https://w140.com/tekwiki/wiki/4052
> 

Okay bit processors were CPU construction sets. :-)

Thanks for the cool link. I'm still trying wrap my head around the 16 bit 6800 compatible. :-)
The Floating point makes a lot of sense but most 6800 instructions were 8 bit (not all) so the
16 bit part and the speed increase over the 1Mhz 6800.

-- 
Linux Home Automation         Neil Cherry       ncherry at linuxha.com
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