Re: Is microprocessor an integrated circuit???

From: Rich Grise (richgrise_at_example.net)
Date: 01/29/05 

Date: Sat, 29 Jan 2005 21:47:33 GMT

On Sat, 29 Jan 2005 10:37:28 -0800, John Larkin wrote:

> On Thu, 27 Jan 2005 14:18:42 GMT, Thaas <mysig@sprynet.com> wrote:
>
>>In the 1970s minicomputers had what are now retroactively defined as
>>"complex" instructions to perform operations like say allocating a
>>free page of physical memory to a program's virtual address space. In
>>the Modcomp IV this was the AMEM instruction. Two other "complex"
>>instructions in that machine were the MMRB (Move Memory to Register
>>Block) and MRBM (Move Register Block to Memory).
>>
>
> The VAX had POLY: evaluate a polynomial. Most of the transcendental
> math functions were microcoded, too.
>

Oy! For some reason this reminded me of watching the G-15 calculating a
square root. It took 10 or 15 seconds - all of the memory, and all of the
registers, were on a rotating magnetic drum. It had a 1-bit ALU, that did
29-bit words serially. It had a bunch of NE-2s on the front, so you could
watch the data go by. ;-)
http://ed-thelen.org/comp-hist/g-15.html
http://www.google.com/search?q=%22bendix+g-15%22

BTW, this is not a microprocessor either. ;-p

Cheers!
Rich

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