[rescue] I/O coprocessors?

[Dave McGuire]

On Saturday, March 1, 2003, at 10:20 PM, Scott Newell wrote:
>> From http://www3.sk.sympatico.ca/jbayko/cpu1.html
> "adapted by General Instruments for use as a peripheral interface
> controller (PIC) which was designed to compensate for poor I/O in its 
> 16
> bit CP1600 CPU"
>
> The I/O processor story has been told on usenet and the PICLIST for 
> some
> time as well.

   Yes, that was its intended purpose, but it's very much a 
general-purpose processor architecture...not specifically suited to 
performing I/O tasks better or worse than anything else...and it wound 
up being used extensively as a microcontroller.  So they may have 
*wanted* it to be an I/O coprocessor, but that's not how things turned 
out.

> Same site also claims the 8x300 started at Signetics...wow...that looks
> like another strange design!

   Come to think of it, I have some 8X305s that have Signetics logos on 
them...I suppose GI bought the design from Signetics or something..?  I 
don't know for sure.

>> "pair of 2901s and a 2910" setup that many designers used, but they
>> were popular nonetheless.
>
> Incidentally, DACafe has the bitslice book online at:
> http://www10.dacafe.com/book/parse_book.php?article=BITSLICE/index.html

   Oh wow...I need to get that.  I have the Mick & Brick bit slice book, 
and it's good...but I've never seen this one.

   I've done some stuff with the 2910 microsequencer (there's one in 
each processor of the Navier-Stokes Supercomputer that I worked on at 
Princeton), and I've studied the 2901 family extensively though never 
designed anything with them.  I've always wanted to...fascinating stuff.

>>   I've got at least one of every popular (and not so popular) chip 
>> used
>> from the dawn of integrated circuitry up into the late 1970s...and 
>> I've
>
> How about an Intel neural network chip (Ni1000)?  Clipper crypto chip? 
>  OK,
> those are 90's era, but I'd sure like to have one of each as a 
> collector's
> item.  ;-)

   Nothing quite that rare, unfortunately.  The rarest stuff I have are 
a stack of 4004s, 4040s, and a few 8008s.

>>   I don't know of any in either of those families.  Dedicated I/O
>> processors seem to be limited to the mini/mainframe world.
>
> Yep, that's why the 8089 intrigues me.

   Geek alert! 8-)

      -Dave

--
Dave McGuire             "I've grown hair again, just
St. Petersburg, FL           for the occasion."       -Doc Shipley