Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watdragon!tiger!mwandel
From: mwandel@tiger.waterloo.edu (Markus Wandel)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Microprocessor counts (was Re: A rough future...)
Message-ID: <1990Apr13.035717.2687@watdragon.waterloo.edu>
Date: 13 Apr 90 03:57:17 GMT
References: <16192@snow-white.udel.EDU> <1990Apr8.013940.12984@wam.umd.edu> <10715@cbmvax.commodore.com> <10764@cbmvax.commodore.com>
Sender: daemon@watdragon.waterloo.edu (Owner of Many System Processes)
Organization: University of Waterloo
Lines: 28

In article <10764@cbmvax.commodore.com> daveh@cbmvax (Dave Haynie) writes:
> 
> In fact, if you all really want to count CPUs, the original A2500/20 came 
> with a 68000, a 68020, a Z-80, and a 6502 all buried inside.  My current 
> A2500/30 setup includes a 6502, a 4502, a 68030, a 68000, and an 80286.  Some
> of the work once done by the Z-80 (in the hard disk controller) is handled 
> by custom logic and smart hard drives.

Ha!  If you are going to get so silly as to count the keyboard processor
(a mask programmed microcontroller which won't ever run anything but a few
bytes of keyboard scan code) then you might as well count all the CPUs.  Here
are the ones on my system right now:

One 68000, one 6501, one 6303, one 8048, one 8080, and three Z8's.  The
first two are in the Amiga, then the printer, a tape unit, a tape controller,
the modem, and the hard disk (it has two Z8's).  Eight processors, of six
different architectures, all running code at the same time.  I'd include
an 8031 too but the homemade box using that isn't hooked up right now...

My CP/M box has two processors in it (both Z80).  And my C64 system, for
a while, had 4 - computer, disk drive, printer, and the printer interface.
So multiple processors really isn't such a big deal, is it...

Just being obnoxious.

Markus Wandel
mwandel@tiger.waterloo.edu
(519) 884-9547