Great Microprocessors of the Past and Present (V 13.3.0)
last major update: May 2003
last minor update: December 2003
More CPU info (Including WWW sites of some companies mentioned here) can be found at The CPU Info
Center:
http://bwrc.eecs.berkeley.edu/CIC/
More detailed documentation of microprocessor instructions sets can be found at Microprocessor
instruction set cards:
http://www.comlab.ox.ac.uk/archive/cards.html
A very detailed (and much more accurate) chronology of microcomputer history can be found at
Chronology of Events in the History of Microcomputers:
http://www.islandnet.com/~kpolsson/comphist/
A list of architects, and some architecture descriptions which are more detailed (and probably
accurate) than those found here is available at Mark Smotherman's list of Recent Computer Architects:
http://www.cs.clemson.edu/~mark/architects.html.
More computer innovators can be found at The History Of Modern Computers And Their Inventors:
http://inventors.about.com/education/inventors/library/blcoindex.htm
An online dictionary of computing terms you might find on this page can be found at the Free On-line
Dictionary of Computing:
http://wombat.doc.ic.ac.uk/
Or one of it's many mirror sites
Feel free to send me comments at:
john.bayko@sasktel.net
Table of Contents
Section One: Before the Great Dark Cloud.
Part I: The Intel 4004, the first (Nov 1971) . .
Part II: TMS 1000, First microcontroller (1974) .
Part III: The Intel 8080 (April 1974) . . .
Part IV: The Zilog Z-80 - End of an 8-bit line (July 1976) . . . .
Part V: The 650x, Another Direction (1975) . . .
Part VI: The 6809, extending the 680x (1977) . . . . . . . .
Part VII: Advanced Micro Devices Am2901, a few bits at a time . .
Part VIII: Intel 8051, Descendant of the 8048. . . .
Part IX: Microchip Technology PIC 16x/17x, call it RISC (1975) . . .
Part X: Atmel AVR - RISC ridiculously small (June 1997) .
Section Two: Forgotten/Innovative Designs before the Great Dark Cloud
Part I: RCA 1802, weirdness at its best (1974) .
Part II: Fairchild F8, Register windows .
Part III: SC/MP, early advanced multiprocessing (April 1976) . . . .
Part IV: F100-L, a self expanding design .
Part V: The Western Digital 3-chip CPU (June 1976) .
Part VI: Intersil 6100, old design in a new package . . .
Part VII: NOVA, another popular adaptation . . . .
Part VIII: Signetics 2650, enhanced accumulator based (1978?) .
Part IX: Signetics 8x300, Early cambrian DSP ancestor (1978) . .
Part X: Hitachi 6301 - Small and microcoded (1983) .
Part XI: Motorola MC14500B ICU, one bit at a time .
Section Three: The Great Dark Cloud Falls: IBM's Choice.
Part I: DEC PDP-11, benchmark for the first 16/32 bit generation. (1970) . . . .
Part II: TMS 9900, first of the 16 bits (June 1976) . .
Part III: Zilog Z-8000, another direct competitor . . . .
Part IV: Motorola 68000, a refined 16/32 bit CPU (September 1979) . . . . . . . . .
Part V: National Semiconductor 32032, similar but different . . . .
Part VI: MIL-STD-1750 - Military artificial intelligence (February 1979) .
Part VII: Intel 8086, IBM's choice (1978) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Section Four: Unix and RISC, a New Hope
Part I: TRON, between the ages (1987) . .
Part II: SPARC, an extreme windowed RISC (1987) . .
Part III: AMD 29000, a flexible register set (1987) . .
Part IV:Siemens 80C166, Embedded load-store with register windows. . .
Part V: MIPS R2000, the other approach. (June 1986) . . . . . . . . . . .
Part VI: Hewlett-Packard PA-RISC, a conservative RISC (Oct 1986) . . . . . .
Part VII: Motorola 88000, Late but elegant (mid 1988) . . . .
Part VIII: Fairchild/Intergraph Clipper, An also-ran (1986) . .
Part IX: Acorn ARM, RISC for the masses (1986) . . . .
Part X: TMS320C30, a popular DSP architecture (1988) . . . .
Part XI: Motorola DSP96002, an elegant DSP architecture . . . . . . . . . .
Part XII: Hitachi SuperH series, Embedded, small, economical (1992) . . . . . . .
Part XIII: Motorola MCore, RISC brother to ColdFire (Early 1998) .
Part XIV: TI MSP430 series, PDP-11 rediscovered (late 1998?) .
Section Five: Born Beyond Scalar
Part I: Intel 960, Intel quietly gets it right (1987 or 1988?) . . . .
Part II: Apollo PRISM - Superworkstation (1988) . .
Part III: Intel 860, "Cray on a Chip" (late 1988?) . . .
Part IV: IBM RS/6000 POWER chips (1990) . . . .
Part V: DEC Alpha, Designed for the future (1992) . . .
Section Six: Beyond RISC - Search for a New Paradigm
Part I: Philips Trimedia - A Media processor (1996) .
Part II: TMS320C6x: Variable length instruction groups (late 1997) . . . .
Part III: Intel/HP IA-64 - Height of speculation (late 1999) . . . .
Part IV: Sun MAJC - Levels of parallelism (late 1999) .
Part V: Transmeta Crusoe - Leaving hardware (January 2000) .
Part VI: Eleven Engineering XInC - Real-time multithreading (August 2002) . .
Section Seven: Weird and Innovative Chips
Part I: Intel 432, Extraordinary complexity (1980) . .
Part II: Rekursiv, an object oriented processor .
Part III: MISC M17: Casting Forth in Silicon[1] (pre 1988?) . .
Part IV: AT&T CRISP/Hobbit, CISC amongst the RISC (1987) . . . .
Part V: T-9000, parallel computing (1994) . . . . . .
Part VI: Patriot Scientific ShBoom: from Forth to Java (April 1996) . .
Part VII: Sun picoJava - not another language-specific processor! (October 1997) . .
Part VIII: Imsys Cjip - embedded WISC (Writable Instruction Set Computer) (Mid 2000) .
Appendices
Appendix A: RISC and CISC Definitions
IBM System 360/370/390: The Mainframe(1964) . . . .
VAX: The Penultimate CISC (1978) .
RISC Roots: CDC 6600 (1965) . .
RISC Formalised: IBM 801 . . .
RISC Refined: Berkeley RISC, Stanford MIPS . .
Appendix B: Virtual Machine Architectures
Forth: Stack oriented period .
UCSD p-System: Portable Pascal . . . .
Java: Once was Oak . . . .
Appendix C: CPU Features
Appendix D: Graphics matrix operations
Appendix E: Announcements from IEEE Computer
Appendix F: Memory Types
Original table of contents provided by Steve Simmons (scs@lokkur.dexter.mi.us)
Split into multiple files by Mena Ryan.
Part I: The Intel 4004, the first (Nov 1971) . .
Part II: TMS 1000, First microcontroller (1974) .
Part III: The Intel 8080 (April 1974) . . .
Part IV: The Zilog Z-80 - End of an 8-bit line (July 1976) . . . .
Part V: The 650x, Another Direction (1975) . . .
Part VI: The 6809, extending the 680x (1977) . . . . . . . .
Part VII: Advanced Micro Devices Am2901, a few bits at a time . .
Part VIII: Intel 8051, Descendant of the 8048. . . .
Part IX: Microchip Technology PIC 16x/17x, call it RISC (1975) . . .
Part X: Atmel AVR - RISC ridiculously small (June 1997) .
第二部分: 在大乌云来临之前的被忘记的有革新性的设计
Part I: RCA 1802, weirdness at its best (1974) .
Part II: Fairchild F8, Register windows .
Part III: SC/MP, early advanced multiprocessing (April 1976) . . . .
Part IV: F100-L, a self expanding design .
Part V: The Western Digital 3-chip CPU (June 1976) .
Part VI: Intersil 6100, old design in a new package . . .
Part VII: NOVA, another popular adaptation . . . .
Part VIII: Signetics 2650, enhanced accumulator based (1978?) .
Part IX: Signetics 8x300, Early cambrian DSP ancestor (1978) . .
Part X: Hitachi 6301 - Small and microcoded (1983) .
Part XI: Motorola MC14500B ICU, one bit at a time .
第三部分: 大乌云来临了: IBM 的抉择.
Part I: DEC PDP-11, benchmark for the first 16/32 bit generation. (1970) . . . .
Part II: TMS 9900, first of the 16 bits (June 1976) . .
Part III: Zilog Z-8000, another direct competitor . . . .
Part IV: Motorola 68000, a refined 16/32 bit CPU (September 1979) . . . . . . . . .
Part V: National Semiconductor 32032, similar but different . . . .
Part VI: MIL-STD-1750 - Military artificial intelligence (February 1979) .
Part VII: Intel 8086, IBM's choice (1978) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
第四部分: Unix 和 RISC, 一个新希望
Part I: TRON, between the ages (1987) . .
Part II: SPARC, an extreme windowed RISC (1987) . .
Part III: AMD 29000, a flexible register set (1987) . .
Part IV:Siemens 80C166, Embedded load-store with register windows. . .
Part V: MIPS R2000, the other approach. (June 1986) . . . . . . . . . . .
Part VI: Hewlett-Packard PA-RISC, a conservative RISC (Oct 1986) . . . . . .
Part VII: Motorola 88000, Late but elegant (mid 1988) . . . .
Part VIII: Fairchild/Intergraph Clipper, An also-ran (1986) . .
Part IX: Acorn ARM, RISC for the masses (1986) . . . .
Part X: TMS320C30, a popular DSP architecture (1988) . . . .
Part XI: Motorola DSP96002, an elegant DSP architecture . . . . . . . . . .
Part XII: Hitachi SuperH series, Embedded, small, economical (1992) . . . . . . .
Part XIII: Motorola MCore, RISC brother to ColdFire (Early 1998) .
Part XIV: TI MSP430 series, PDP-11 rediscovered (late 1998?) .
第五部分: 与生俱来的超标量
Part I: Intel 960, Intel quietly gets it right (1987 or 1988?) . . . .
Part II: Apollo PRISM - Superworkstation (1988) . .
Part III: Intel 860, "Cray on a Chip" (late 1988?) . . .
Part IV: IBM RS/6000 POWER chips (1990) . . . .
Part V: DEC Alpha, Designed for the future (1992) . . .
第六部分: 超越 RISC - 寻找新的范例
Part I: Philips Trimedia - A Media processor (1996) .
Part II: TMS320C6x: Variable length instruction groups (late 1997) . . . .
Part III: Intel/HP IA-64 - Height of speculation (late 1999) . . . .
Part IV: Sun MAJC - Levels of parallelism (late 1999) .
Part V: Transmeta Crusoe - Leaving hardware (January 2000) .
Part VI: Eleven Engineering XInC - Real-time multithreading (August 2002) . .
第七部分: 怪异的和革新性的芯片
Part I: Intel 432, Extraordinary complexity (1980) . .
Part II: Rekursiv, an object oriented processor .
Part III: MISC M17: Casting Forth in Silicon[1] (pre 1988?) . .
Part IV: AT&T CRISP/Hobbit, CISC amongst the RISC (1987) . . . .
Part V: T-9000, parallel computing (1994) . . . . . .
Part VI: Patriot Scientific ShBoom: from Forth to Java (April 1996) . .
Part VII: Sun picoJava - not another language-specific processor! (October 1997) . .
Part VIII: Imsys Cjip - embedded WISC (Writable Instruction Set Computer) (Mid 2000) .