[HN Gopher] Great Microprocessors of the Past and Present (2003)
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       Great Microprocessors of the Past and Present (2003)
        
       Author : msla
       Score  : 41 points
       Date   : 2023-06-20 06:01 UTC (17 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.cpushack.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.cpushack.com)
        
       | johnklos wrote:
       | In 2023, not counting x86, I'm still using seven of these great
       | processor architectures. NetBSD support is quite good :)
       | 
       | https://zia.io/notice/AWDclbEuAQSxu4UIZk
        
       | forinti wrote:
       | I recently took apart an Entex Pacman2 which I still have from my
       | childhood.
       | 
       | I found this strange CPU in it (and not much else): Hitachi
       | HD388A20.
       | 
       | It belongs to a family of 4 bit processors (HMSC40) with 10 bit
       | words and 10-12 address lines (512 bytes to 4KB). It's a weird
       | little thing. You can still find the manuals online. They have
       | pins that drive the display directly and some addresses are for
       | storing bit patterns which you can move directly to the display.
       | I guess many portable games from the 80s must have used these
       | chips, but I had never heard of it.
        
         | Donckele wrote:
         | You got any links to info about those chips?
        
           | forinti wrote:
           | Check out this page:
           | https://en.wikichip.org/wiki/hitachi/hmcs40
           | 
           | And this manual: https://www.manualslib.com/products/Hitachi-
           | Ap1-10557785.htm...
        
       | msla wrote:
       | It's version 13.4.0 but I figured the year of the last revision
       | would be more useful.
       | 
       | Previously (only ones with comments):
       | 
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=641376
       | 
       | https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1050087
        
         | theandrewbailey wrote:
         | If another version was produced, I wonder what CPUs would be
         | included. I find it mildly irritating that all x86 CPUs (along
         | with Itanium) are talked about under the "Part VII: Intel 8086,
         | IBM's choice (1978)" heading, and doesn't break out the 386 or
         | Pentiums, and likewise with ARM.
        
       | mepian wrote:
       | Section Seven would benefit from a few more entries: the MIT
       | Scheme chips, the Texas Instruments Explorer II / microExplorer,
       | and the Symbolics Ivory.
       | 
       | https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/5731
       | 
       | https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/6334
       | 
       | https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/1317224.1317226
       | 
       | https://gwern.net/doc/cs/hardware/1987-baker.pdf
        
       | zwieback wrote:
       | My youth: Z80, 6502
       | 
       | Micros I used: 8051, PIC, AVR, MSP430
       | 
       | Mainstream CPUs: 68000, x86
       | 
       | DSPs: TMS320Cxx (no SHarc?)
       | 
       | Missing from this list: NIOS II and other soft cores and anything
       | ARM. Maybe they are not supposed to be here.
        
         | stevesimmons wrote:
         | To complete my microprocessor list, here are the two exotic
         | CPUs I most wanted to try as a teenager. Buying them in
         | mid-1980s Australia was not realistic, especially since I had
         | no money. The closest I came to them was reading about them in
         | Byte magazine...
         | 
         | * Inmos T414 Transputer (1985), with Occam programming
         | language.
         | 
         | * Novix NC4016 (also 1985), designed by Chuck Moore, which
         | executed Forth directly.
        
         | stevesimmons wrote:
         | That's my list exactly. What a trip down 40 years of
         | programming!
         | 
         | * 6502 in my Vic20 and Apple ][, as a teenager (both computers'
         | manuals had complete circuit schematics)
         | 
         | * Z80 assembly during my Elec Eng degree
         | 
         | * 8051 assembly for embedded systems I built for some
         | consulting clients during my PhD
         | 
         | * DSPs including DSP32C (1992) and TMS320Cxx, considered for
         | radar processing during my PhD (though by that stage, the 486
         | turned out to be good enough!)
         | 
         | * x86 for everything else. Especially once PCs came with the
         | x87 floating point processors (for 386, before the 486
         | integrated the FPU into the CPU).
        
           | JohnFen wrote:
           | Oh, the nostalgia!
           | 
           | I remember the first "holy war" I was ever exposed to was Z80
           | vs 6502.
        
             | zwieback wrote:
             | I had a Z80 CP/M card in my 6502 computer (Apple ][) but my
             | heart was always on the 6502 side.
        
             | stevesimmons wrote:
             | My first exposure to the Z80 was via Rodnay Zaks's book
             | [1].
             | 
             | And, just because I was curious, here's the Vic-20's 6502
             | circuit diagram [2]
             | 
             | [1] https://archive.org/details/Programming_the_Z-80_2nd_Ed
             | ition...
             | 
             | [2] https://www.vic-20.it/wp-
             | content/uploads/2021/06/VIC-20-Sche...
             | 
             | P.S. Fun fact - my mobile phone number ends "6502" :)
        
           | zwieback wrote:
           | I forgot about DSP32C, we had that in one of our vision
           | systems. Fun chip but I preferred the TI offerings.
        
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