Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!swrinde!cs.utexas.edu!romp!auschs!awdprime!ace.austin.ibm.com!deene From: deene@ace.austin.ibm.com Newsgroups: sci.electronics Subject: Re: microprocessor wanted Message-ID: <7243@awdprime.UUCP> Date: 2 May 91 18:40:47 GMT References: <119279@unix.cis.pitt.edu> <2689@umriscc.isc.umr.edu> Sender: news@awdprime.UUCP Reply-To: ...@cs.utexas.edu:ibmaus!auschs!ace.austin.ibm.com!ace Organization: IBM Corporation Advanced Workstation Division Lines: 35 > Subject: Re: microprocessor wanted > >> o BUILT-IN floating processor (that's the problem) > >> o CHEAP (under $40) > >I don't have a solid answer for you, but somebody else may be able to > >finish it. I think I heard from somebody once that the uP in the TI99/4A > >had a uP with a built-in floating point processor. If this is true, > > It's not. Sorry. The cpu in a TI99/4 is a TI9900, and it definitely > doesn't have a floating instruction set. Good grief, it just barely > has an integer instruction set :-P. I hacked on the 9900 for a while, > and it was not pleasant. Easy now... The 9900 was quite a machine for its time, but ho-hum today. I worked on the 9900 design team and when it was initially available, the king of the microprocessor hill was the lowly 8080 - 8 bits and no hw multiply/divide. The 9900 was a full 16 bitter with separate TTL compatible address and data busses and had hardware multiply and divide. Its architecture was very similar to the PDP-11 except that registers were in memory. The 99/4A was slated to use an 8-bit bus version (9985, years before the 8088) of the 9900, but TI had problems with the on-board oscillator/clock system. So the 9900 was substituded which caused mucho cost problems. The 9900 family also had a single chip microcomputer version with on-board rom and ram called the 9940. It pushed technology and had significant development problems. Deene Ogden (Boy, I wish we had patented more of our work.) It's too bad the TI 990, 99/4A, and 9900 were not big successes.