[vcf-midatlantic] Working on a historical microprocessor exhibt

[Dean Notarnicola]

I agree that we start simply, with mainstream  microprocessors from the 70s
up to 1990 (486, 68040) and then expand over time.


On Tue, Feb 11, 2020 at 12:21 PM Ethan Dicks via vcf-midatlantic <
vcf-midatlantic at lists.vcfed.org> wrote:

> On Sun, Feb 9, 2020 at 12:47 PM David Gesswein via vcf-midatlantic
> <vcf-midatlantic at lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
> > On Sun, Feb 09, 2020 at 11:45:37AM -0500, Adam Michlin via
> vcf-midatlantic wrote:
> > > VCF is working on a historical exhibit of CPUs (not really support
> > > chips at this point). Literally just the CPUs.
> > >
> > > What should we have at the bare minimum? 4004, 8008, 8088, 8086,
> > > 6502, Z80, 6800, 6809...?
> > >
> > Without your criteria hard to say. A lot were intended for embedded
> > applications.
>
> Agreed.
>
> > Some more 8 bits 1802, F8, TMS 1000, 8048/8051, PIC, 8x300.
>
> Yep.
>
> > greater than 8 bit: 68000 family,  TMS 9900, 6100 (PDP-8 on a chip)
>
> Yep.  I was going to mention the 6100 and 6120, but you already did...
>
> > Interested in bit slice such as AM2901?
>
> As covered elsewhere, that's a nice chip, but it's in the category of
> CPU building blocks (with the 74181 and others)...
>
> > > What should we have if we have more space? 80x86, 680x0, Sparc,
> > > MIPS, Power, Alpha, ARM, Itanium...?
>
> If you are going to that level, there's also the CVAX chip, the first
> implementation of the VAX architecture on a single chip (previously
> done on multiple ASICs or Am2901 bit slice or gate arrays...)
>
> There's the F-11 and J-11 and T-11 implementations of the PDP-11.
> Besides just "a PDP-11 CPU", the T-11 showed up as a microcontroller
> on peripherals and in multiple arcade games (Atari System 2 platform,
> games like Paperboy and others).
>
> > AVR since popular with hobbiest and continuation of old microcontroller.
>
> There are a few million of those in people's hands.  It's also
> interesting for being Harvard Architecture (along with PIC and MCS-51
> (8051 and variants))
>
> It really comes down to what the point of the display it - you've
> mentioned pointing out the rise in complexity/Moore's Law, but there's
> also the time aspect (decade by decade) or product tiers (embedded,
> home desktops, industrial-class machines...)  So many ways to slice
> the pie.
>
> -ethan
>