Core Memory Interfacing?

From: Douglas H. Quebbeman <dquebbeman_at_acm.org>
Date: Wed Apr 3 18:33:45 2002

> > From: Douglas H. Quebbeman <dquebbeman_at_acm.org>
> >
> > >The Hazeltine 2000 is a 1972-era computer terminal. It used core
> > >memory, but did not have a microprocesor, and therefore, no
> > >software.
> > >
> > >So at least the Hazeltine did it in hardware.
> >
> > As did the VT52 and a slew of others.
>
> Except that every VT52 I've ever worked on used
> semiconductor memory, not core.
>
> Anyway. the fact that there's no microprocessor does not mean that
> there's no software. There are plenty of microcoded TTL designs about
> (the VT52 is one of them IMHO) which have PROMs containing something that
> is reasonably called firmware.

Yeah, there is the old 7400 series arithmetic unit...

But in my experience, most pre-micro computer
equipment used fusible-link ROMs for truth-tables;
a transitional item, the Processor Tech SOL's
keyboard, is a good example of this.

-dq
Received on Wed Apr 03 2002 - 18:33:45 BST