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Subject: Re: Processor speed

Author: Robert Hyatt

Date: 20:07:17 03/09/00

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On March 09, 2000 at 21:58:18, Tom Kerrigan wrote:

>On March 09, 2000 at 21:03:17, Robert Hyatt wrote:
>
>>On March 09, 2000 at 17:34:47, Tom Kerrigan wrote:
>>
>>>On March 09, 2000 at 16:35:50, Pierre Bourget wrote:
>>>
>>>>>Never heard of an H7 or H8 processor.  But many older chess programs were based
>>>>>on Motorola 68000 series.  68000 is 16 bit, and 68020 is 32 bit.  You can't just
>>>
>>>I believe the 68000 is 32-bit. It has a 24-bit address bus to reduce the
>>>pincount.
>>>
>>
>>He is right.  the 6800 was 8 bit, the 68000 was 16 bit.  the 020 was the
>>first 32 bit member of the family...
>
>It depends on how you count bits. 16 bit data bus, 24 bit addresses, but any
>comp org textbook will tell you that the 68000 has 8 32-bit general purpose data
>registers and 8 32-bit address registers, and most of the instructions operated
>on 32 bits at a time.
>
>If you really want to say a processor is n-bit when it has an n-bit data bus, be
>my guest. But then most PCs become 64-bit, which I don't think you agree with.
>
>-Tom


that's the wrong way to measure this.  the 8080 was a 16 bit cpu if you use
that logic.  The 68000 had a 16 bit bus.  I taught hardware design courses at
USM many years ago... Motorola donated what they called "notebook computers"
back then... a motherboard and cpu with external interface logic, and it all
fit into a loose-leaf ring binder.  :)  but the cpu was 16 bit by any measure
I would name...  otherwise what do we call the 80286?

Maybe the 68000 could be thought of as a hybrid, but I always look at the
bus width as the first test of a 32 bit machine...  it has to be at least
32 bits wide...

that 68000 (that I had anyway) didn't support that...

the next one I used was an 030 in an early sun workstation.



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