Newsgroups: comp.arch
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Totally asynchronous computers
Message-ID: <1991Jan8.224758.996@zoo.toronto.edu>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <3523@bruce.cs.monash.OZ.AU> <17214@cbmvax.commodore.com>
Date: Tue, 8 Jan 1991 22:47:58 GMT

In article <17214@cbmvax.commodore.com> daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie) writes:
>... In several 6502 family systems I worked on (same bus
>interface as a 6800 for the most part), we played games with the CPU clock.
>Basically, it would run ordinary cycles at the fastest clock speeds around,
>stretching part of the system as necessary...

Not unknown even in (somewhat) more modern machines.  The early Sun 3's
did 68020 memory accesses with 1.5, rather than 2, wait states by a similar
trick.  (Folks who were there have said, roughly, "we could have gotten it
down to 1 if we'd really tried, but after years of building machines that
were on the ragged edge of timing specs, there was considerable interest
in a more robust design that would be easier to build in quantity".)
-- 
If the Space Shuttle was the answer,   | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
what was the question?                 |  henry@zoo.toronto.edu   utzoo!henry
