Questions on the days finds

From: Joe <rigdonj_at_intellistar.net>
Date: Mon Feb 15 00:30:15 1999

At 01:44 AM 2/15/99 +0000, you wrote:
>> Yes but what's interesting is that the bit-slice 4052 is software
>> compatible with the 6800 powered 4051!!! The 4052 is a 16 bit machine. I'm
>> guessing that Tektronix used the bit slice CPU so that they could retain
>> the same software but gain the power of the 16 bit system.
>
>>From what I recall (looking at Philip's 4052 service docs), the
>instruction set is not identical. There's at least one 6800 instruction
>missing on the 4052.

  That's odd unless they (Tektronix) never used that instruction since they
claim the the 4052 and 4054 will run all the 4051 software.

  Does the 4052 service manual give that level of detail? The one for the
4051 gives NO information on the CPU instruction set other than what was in
the Motorola 6800 brochure that's included in the manual. Does the 4052
manual give the entry points of the software routines in the system ROM?

 And there are (of course) some extra instructions on
>the 4052 that aren't on the 6800. That's why some ROMs are 4052 and later
>only.

   The 4052 and 4054s also have a larger address range and more memory,
that may also be why their ROMs won't work in the 4051.
>
>At the hardware level, the 4052 is 16 bit. But the microcode implements
>an 8 bit processor - the 16 bit operations are used for calculating
>addresses only.

   I wondered if they were using all 16 bits for data since they could use
the 8 bit 4051 ROMs.

   Joe
Received on Mon Feb 15 1999 - 00:30:15 GMT