Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!mcsun!hp4nl!charon!jurjen
From: jurjen@cwi.nl (Jurjen NE Bos)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: How about this architecture
Message-ID: <2407@charon.cwi.nl>
Date: 24 Oct 90 15:29:45 GMT
Sender: news@cwi.nl
Organization: CWI, Amsterdam
Lines: 26
Originator: jurjen@lijster.cwi.nl


I had a discussion with a friend about the wordsize of a processor, and we
couldn't find a reasonable measure.
Here is some information about the processor.  I'll tell you later on what
it is.

Registers: 64 bits
4 accumulator registers, not all instruction work on all register
5 data register, only load and store
2 20-bits index registers
20-bits program counter
3-bits stack pointer
4-bits nibble index register P
Addressing modes: indexed, direct (at location of nibble index), and
register.
Register addressing affects nibbles 0-F(entire register), 3-E(mantissa),
0-4(address), 0-2(exponent), 0-1(byte), 2(sign of exponent), F(sign),
P(any nibble) or 0-P(any amount of nibbles), or sometimes something else.
Clock: 2Mhz.

The HP owners will recognize their Saturn processor.  It occurs it most
Hewlett-Packard calculators.
Now the question: how many bits?
I always say it is a 4-bits processor, but people who claim that their 8088
is 16-bits will call this a 64-bits processor.  Right?
Comments, anyone?