Posted on 01/30/2009 8:46:14 AM PST by TaraP
The hexidecimal digits are for human convenience ONLY. It is easier to write 00 instead of 00000000. Three bit groups were used by Digital Equipment corporation, and that was known as octal. Once again, that was strictly for operator convenience.
While processors might be internally blocked into groups of 4 bits, there hasn't been a 12-bit machine since the PDP 8 that I know of. The SEL 810s and 840s were 24-bit machines with three bytes per word. (That was a madhouse.)
Do you actually know how the binary number system works? Can you write "one megabyte" in binary? Would it be an even 1,000,000 bytes, or would it be 1024 X 1024?
So, technically, 60 would be represented as 00111100 for a bytes, and 600 wouldn't fit. If one sums 6 + 60 + 600, it simply has to be 1010011010. That it two bits bigger than a byte.
You may work on a chip team, but that certainly doesn't include the ALU, does it?
have for 30 years ... again I was talking single chars 6-6-6 not 600+60+6. Six in HEX is 0110 or in byte form 000000110 ...and yes I have had opportunity to work with ALU's
BTW ... I have both the Z80 and 8080 coding books in my library and the TI yellow TTL book. I was on a design team for the 8 bit computer chip (CPU8) that is (was) in the Galileo space probe
Oh and 1024 would be correct
I bet those can be a real bitch, given a wide bit width and carry look-aheads and all. Throw in a barrel-shifter, and I suppose things get pretty crowded.
68000 class machines were my favorite. Too bad Intel crap squeezed them out of the larger market.
Terrific! That was a good chip.
Isn't it wonderful that hardware and software guys can still fight like dogs and then go have a beer together? ;-D
I've dearly loved my career. Computing just isn't what it used to be. PCs have taken all of the real fun out of it; and, most software people don't have clue anymore. Sorry, I mistook you as one of those. Damn, I miss those lights and switches.
Great Ceasar's Ghost! I still have mine as well. I even have a white Signetics book.
Well lets see ... 10 years Litton SDI engineer and designing things like wild weasel upgrades. 3 years FPGA’s. 5 years National Semi 100 M ethernet. 5 year Motorola 6800XX and Power PC ... still have my Mighty Mouse shorts ... 3 years Intel optics division. 3 years on iPod / iPhone design teams. 2 years designing chips for Blue Ray. Years rounded up = 31 years
They make a very large family of microcontrollers. Those are used in appliance controls, and anywhwere you'd want a cheap and VERY rugged processor.
Just Google "Microchip".
White Signetics ... So do I
I think we were talking about two entirely different aspects of the same thing ... It is fun though
Seems we were in a symantics pissing contest. Oh well.
As I said in a previous post, the 68000 class was the best there ever was. It was God's choice, and I have that from a good authority. ;-D
forgot that I Had to do some analog for Teradyne as well ... YIG oscillator
Did you ever do anything with the AMD 2900 Series bit-slice chips? I implemented a high-speed serial interface to a Singer computer. That was a tough project.
I guess people use FPGAs to do that sort of stuff nowadays.
The CPU8 was two CPU4’s tacked together ... Litton changed from using the homegrown CPU16 to the Mot 68020 inthe early warning systems (ALR’s) in the late 80’s. The ALR 36 9/) was tube based ... now I’m showing my age ... The iPod uses the ARM. Try asking a “new” engineer what a 7474 (5474) or a 555 is ... or even a 2222
I imagine that was Singer Link ... did that turn into Dalmo Victor ?
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.