2901s was Re: Rotting away

From: allisonp_at_world.std.com <(allisonp_at_world.std.com)>
Date: Thu Apr 8 11:12:22 1999

On Thu, 8 Apr 1999, Arfon Gryffydd wrote:

> What exactly is a 2901 (besides an IC)?

Its a ALU and register set all 4 bits wide and cascadable. A bunch of
them and a few pounds(kilograms) of TTL and other goodies later and you
have a computer.

Lookup a 74181 alu (it's nearly the same) and hang 2 four bit registers
around it and a 4bit by 16 nibble ram and thats a 2901. IT's very useful
for cooking up all sorts of interesting cpus or their look alikes. And in
the late 70s early 80s it's 10mhz speed made for potentially fast cpus
or specialized number crunchers.

It was also used in DEC FPPs for the PDP-11 series. I still have a fat
handful of them around.

Allison
Received on Thu Apr 08 1999 - 11:12:22 BST