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From: The Natural Philosopher <tnp@invalid.invalid>
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.misc
Subject: Re: Remember "Bit-Slice" Chips ?
Date: Sat, 7 Dec 2024 14:29:03 +0000
Organization: A little, after lunch
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On 07/12/2024 07:33, 186282@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.
> 
> 
As an engineer it always amazes me on how such little things the success 
of a technology depends.

Aircraft could have been invented hundreds of years earlier if a 
lightweight power source had turned up, but steam wasn't good enough, 
and it took oil petrol or gas to make the power sources light enough.

Today's electric cars fail because the batteries simple are barely good 
enough to replace IC.

Windmills and solar panels are useless for the same reason. - there is 
no storage able to meet the intermittency problem.

Yet the advance of photolithography and quantum theory made the 
integrated circuit a possibility, the Cold War mandated the need for 
small light electronics for missiles, and here we are.



-- 
If I had all the money I've spent on drink...
...I'd spend it on drink.

Sir Henry (at Rawlinson's End)