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From: Robert Riches <spamtrap42@jacob21819.net>
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.misc
Subject: Re: Remember "Bit-Slice" Chips ?
Date: 8 Dec 2024 05:01:35 GMT
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On 2024-12-07, 186282@ud0s4.net <186283@ud0s4.net> wrote:
> Latter 70s they were The Thing.
>
> Needed a 64/128 processor in an 8-bit world, then
> bit-slice processors were yer fix.
>
> They were the basics of a CPU - but wired so you
> could physically attach them to MORE processors.
> All the necessary flags/registers/etc could be
> expanded wider and wider.
>
> You could buy 2-bit, 4-bit, slice processors and
> physically build something much stronger.
>
> I even remember hearing of them mentioned in some
> cheap TV series - some geek with his own R2D2
> clone that was WAY too capable for the era.
>
> TODAY ... well ... you can make a 64/128 on like
> a 1cm die - really party on a 2cm die.
>
> Bit-slice now - you'd loose far too much in
> the interface wiring. Really no longer a
> solution - unless maybe you need a 1024/2048
> processor  :-)
>
> Kinda the same goes for 'Transputers' - parallel
> solution using ultra-speed (for the day) serial
> links between many processors to coordinate
> things between all the chips (they could have
> a shared memory area too).
>
> Older tech limitations spawned FIXES ... there
> were many. Some were very *clever* - might even
> have future apps.

Tektronix made a series of "desktop" computers back in the day.
The 4051 was the first in the series and used a Motorola 6800
processor.  As far as I'm aware, the 4052 and 4054 made up the
rest of the series.  Those had the same processor, a 6800
superset made from bit-slide chips (2900-2901-..., IIRC).  IIRC,
they ran about 20MHz except when accessing an external ROM pack.
There were added opcodes for basic floating point operations.
Even with BASIC using double-precision floating point numbers for
everything numeric, they were faster at many things than
microprocessors of the day.  I was told it took a 486 at
somewhere around 66MHz to equal or beat it.

-- 
Robert Riches
spamtrap42@jacob21819.net
(Yes, that is one of my email addresses.)