Re:I decided to build a nine-bit computer
by larsbrinkhoff on Thursday February 10, 2022 @01:18AM
(#30282979)
The CPU was called MBB (Microprogrammable Building Block).
Here's the C/30 Programmer's Reference for the "Native Mode Firmware System". That was the software that ran in the native 20-bit mode rather than emulating the 16-bit Honeywell mini.
https://walden-family.com/impcode/c30-nmfs-programmers-refer...
Re:I decided to build a nine-bit computer
by googamooga on Wednesday February 09, 2022 @03:26PM
(#30278008)
I have working PDP-11/23 in my possession and last couple of months Iām trying to convince myself that I have enough soldering skills to solder four additional memory lanes on its backplane to increase memory limit from 256KB to 4096KB. Otherwise even though I install a processor able to work with 22bit addresses only 18bit addressing will be available.
Re:I decided to build a nine-bit computer
by linguistiliniw on Wednesday February 09, 2022 @08:08PM
(#30281185)
IIRC MSP430 microcontrollers do something like that, too. They have low-power 16-bit CPUs, but you can't do a lot with 64k memory space so newer models have instructions with 20-bit addressing.
They're fun to work with; some versions have FRAM instead of Flash memory.
Re:I decided to build a nine-bit computer
by wildzzz on Wednesday February 09, 2022 @11:42PM
(#30282520)
FRAM is pretty neat. I considered using an MSP430FR5969-SP for a component on a satellite but backed off when I learned more about the destructive read process. We were concerned about a transient bitflip during the write back and had no where safe to store program code other than the FRAM itself. Instead, we went with a RISC-V core in an FPGA and used an 8 channel ADC to cover the telemetry reporting the MSP430 was supposed to handle. I spent a lot of time writing fast, safe code for it so was a little disappointed it never made it into the final design.
Re:I decided to build a nine-bit computer
by larsbrinkhoff on Wednesday February 09, 2022 @11:14AM
(#30274374)
The Unix machine was called C70, right?
There was an alternate microcode load for it, which implemented an instruction set similar to that of a PDP-11, and could run an ancient version of Unix. (maybe not so ancient back in 1985, but definitely pre-BSD) We used one or two of those for our development machines, and it was my job to write software tools on them, using C with 20-bit words and 10-bit bytes.
Man, it was a pain in the ass.