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Subject: Re: Processor speed

Author: Bo Persson

Date: 09:48:34 03/10/00

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On March 10, 2000 at 03:26:11, Tom Kerrigan wrote:

>On March 10, 2000 at 02:12:39, Jeremiah Penery wrote:
>
>>On March 10, 2000 at 00:08:56, Albert Silver wrote:
>>
>>>Not that this constitutes any real evidence, but back when Mephisto was making
>>>the Dallas and Roma on 68000s they described them as 16-bit and the 68020 as
>>>32-bit.
>>
>>And, since someone mentioned the Sega Genesis in another portion of this thread,
>>it ran on the 68000, and was called a 16-bit machine.
>
>Yeah, back in the day, people were a little confused about what to call stuff.
>
>For example, when Apple started using the "clock doubled" 040s, they weren't
>real sure if they were supposed to advertise the FSB speed or the processor's
>internal clock speed. They ended up calling a lot of processors 33MHz, when it's
>clear to us today that they are 66MHz processors.
>
>I think the reason people call the 68000 16-bit is because it only has a 16-bit
>data bus, so it's not "pure" 32-bit. But I do believe that the register busses
>inside the chip, and the ALU, are 32-bit.
>
>-Tom

No, I think the 68000 had a 16-bit ALU, but the architechture was ready to go
32-bit later (68020).

Please look at Motorolas site,
http://www.motorola.com/General/Timeline/hist_70.html#79A

Where they state:

"1979 Motorola introduces its first 16-bit microprocessor, the 68000."



Bo Persson
bop@malmo.mail.telia.com



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