Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wuarchive!uunet!sugar!peter From: peter@sugar.hackercorp.com (Peter da Silva) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy Subject: Re: 8-bit death Message-ID: <1991May5.122821.24442@sugar.hackercorp.com> Date: 5 May 91 12:28:21 GMT References: <1991May1.064455.3058@kessner.denver.co.us> <21135@cbmvax.commodore.com> <24582@well.sf.ca.us> Organization: Sugar Land Unix -- Houston, TX Lines: 45 In article <24582@well.sf.ca.us> farren@well.sf.ca.us (Mike Farren) writes: > The 8086, ***at the time it was introduced***, was a big step up. How about the time the PC came out? > Of course, Motorola did the 68000 a year or two later, but for > quite a while, you chose an 8086 or nothing if you wanted a reasonable > 16-bit processor. When the PC was done there were a number of choices: 68000, 8086, Z8000, etc... I think the F-11 (PDP-11 on a chip) was out. Hold. 1981 edition of the Osborne 16-bit micro handbook. Includes some real oddballs, like the 2900 bit-slicers. I'd hesitate to call some of these 16-bitters (the 2900s are 1-bitters) but it includes the DG Nova as well as the 8086, 68000, and Z8000. And the TMS9900. The first 16-bit CPU it lists is the PACE/INS8900. 4 GP registers. Interesting, hardware stack with an overflow interrupt. Only 10 words deep, though. Only 16-bit external addressing, like the 6809. Overall I'd rate the 6809 as a better "16 bit" CPU. General Instruments CP1600... looks pretty much like a baby PDP-11. 8 general purpose registers, with R7 as the PC. Only one bit of addressing mode, so the upper registers postincrement and predecrement on indirect reads and writes. Cute. Not a bad design. Still only 16 bits of memory addressing, but at least as good as the 6809. TMS9900 Weird. Single chip Nova. Another stripped down minicomputer like the TMS9900 and the F-11. 4 GP registers. Pretty normal. 8086. First with >16 bit address space, albeit via bank selecting. Really weird selection of registers... every bit as psycho as I recall. Z8000. 68000. And then the bit-slice stuff. NO mention of the 6809 in either the 8- or 16- bit handbooks, but it's at least as 16-bit as most of the micros in this book from a programmer's standpoint. -- Peter da Silva. `-_-' .