Slightly OT - Texas Instruments ad from 1977 - Two Bytes are better than one
 

Oh- how far we have come with computers. Seeing this ad really gave a
reminder today.

Two Bytes Are Better Than One

TEXAS INSTRUMENTS

TMS 9900 16BIT

MICROPROCESSOR

FREE YOURSELF FROM THE ONE BYTE WORLD. MOVE UP TO THE TWO BYTE
TEXAS INSTRUMENTS TMS-990C 16-BIT MICROPROCESSOR – WITH OUR — “SUPER
STARTER SYSTEM” – TEC-9900-SS. SHOWN ABOVE. FEATURES HARDWARE MULTIPLY
AND DIVIDE, 69 MINI-COMPUTER INSTRUCTIONS, 7 ADDRESSING MODES,
EXPANDABLE TO A FULL 65K BYTES; MONITOR, TMS 9900 CPU, RAM, P-ROM,
E-PROM, PROGRAMMER ALL ON ONE P-C BOARD BASIC OPERATING SYSTEM AS LOW
AS $299 UNASSEMBLED $399 ASSEMBLED AND TESTED EXPLICIT MANUAL INCLUDED
OR AVAILABLE SEPARATELY AT $35, TO LEARN MORE . . .JUST TEAR OFF A
PIECE OF THIS AD. PIN TO YOUR LETTERHEAD & RETURN TO TECHNICO OR
CALL OUR HOTLINE 1-800/638-2893 TO RECEIVE FREE INFO-PACKAGE. —DESIGN
& TECH SUPPORT BY ROSSE CORP

TECHNICO INCORPORATED

9130 Red Branch Rd. Columbia, Md. 21045 301-596-4100

THE TECHNOLOGY LEADER IN ELECTRONICS DISTRIBUTION

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Slightly OT - Texas Instruments ad from 1977 - Two Bytes arebetter than one
 

MummyChunk wrote:
Oh- how far we have come with computers. Seeing this ad really gave a
reminder today.

Two Bytes Are Better Than One

TEXAS INSTRUMENTS

TMS 9900 16BIT

MICROPROCESSOR

FREE YOURSELF FROM THE ONE BYTE WORLD. MOVE UP TO THE TWO BYTE
TEXAS INSTRUMENTS TMS-990C 16-BIT MICROPROCESSOR � WITH OUR � �SUPER
STARTER SYSTEM� � TEC-9900-SS. SHOWN ABOVE. FEATURES HARDWARE MULTIPLY
AND DIVIDE, 69 MINI-COMPUTER INSTRUCTIONS, 7 ADDRESSING MODES,
EXPANDABLE TO A FULL 65K BYTES; MONITOR, TMS 9900 CPU, RAM, P-ROM,
E-PROM, PROGRAMMER ALL ON ONE P-C BOARD BASIC OPERATING SYSTEM AS LOW
AS $299 UNASSEMBLED $399 ASSEMBLED AND TESTED EXPLICIT MANUAL INCLUDED
OR AVAILABLE SEPARATELY AT $35, TO LEARN MORE . . .JUST TEAR OFF A
PIECE OF THIS AD. PIN TO YOUR LETTERHEAD & RETURN TO TECHNICO OR
CALL OUR HOTLINE 1-800/638-2893 TO RECEIVE FREE INFO-PACKAGE. �DESIGN
& TECH SUPPORT BY ROSSE CORP

TECHNICO INCORPORATED

9130 Red Branch Rd. Columbia, Md. 21045 301-596-4100

THE TECHNOLOGY LEADER IN ELECTRONICS DISTRIBUTION

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http://www.jlaforums.com/viewtopic.p...5068#513945068

I have one of those.

It was used in the first computer I built. I breadboarded
the TMS9900 on an ACE236.

The nice thing about the chip, is the package is white
ceramic, and the chip is big enough, you can write the
signal names on the chip with a pencil.

And it didn't have a heatsink on it.

It used a four phase non-overlapping clock, with the
clock amplitude being 12VDC. While the chip itself had
5V logic outputs. Instead of being CMOS, it was NMOS.

The part of the thing that was hairy, was the clock generator.
(That's an external DIP chip, 48MHz quartz crystal input,
3MHz output.) The clockgen really needs to be buffered
with transistors, to keep the clock generator from burning out.
I burned out a clockgen, and because they cost $20 and
I was a student, I was royally ****ed at them. There's
no excuse for making a clockgen with a Pdiss way outside
what the package can dissipate. It's quite possible the
clockgen burned up more power than the processor. As I
don't remember the processor getting all that warm.

I don't think it executed instructions at 3MHz, and the
rate was likely lower than that. (Just as Intel chips
being CISC, take their sweet time doing stuff.)

To run code on mine, I had to hand assemble the code,
with a pencil and paper, and then it would take around
maybe an hour to key it all in with dipswitches. I had
a pushbutton, a reasonable size one, as my "write strobe",
and after you set up a RAM address and 16 bit data pattern
on the DIP switches, a press of the write strobe button
would store that in static RAM. My output was a calculator
display. Four hex digits on the left were the address,
four hex digits on the right were the RAM data (16 bit word).

I really wish I'd taken a picture of it, as it looked a
mess, but the damn thing was stable. It never crashed
while I was working on it. Which is more than I can say
for some other projects of that sort. The frequency
counter I built on the ACE236, would regularly go nuts,
because the chips used had edge rates a lot faster than
the TMS9900. That was the secret to what made it work.
Moderate edge rates. I didn't know that at the time.
Back then, you just "built it and see", as the amount
of transmission line theory available to a student
at the time, was limited. That's also why the S100
generation of computers sucked donkey balls. It took
years and years for engineers to get the hang of this
stuff :-/

Paul

Slightly OT - Texas Instruments ad from 1977 - Two Bytes are better than one
 

On Sun, 29 Mar 2020 14:51:37 -0500,
lid (MummyChunk) wrote:

Oh- how far we have come with computers. Seeing this ad really gave a
reminder today.

A niche marketing, though significant at least for developed countries
and an interest capable then to afford a relative specialty provided
at higher to exponential costs. Instrumental grade entities, though
not to be underplayed, as in the case of early HP's RPN calculators. A
180-shift in phase whereby to place a similar liking for a Raspberry
Pi, UK's present answer to at least in economically positioning the Pi
at an affordable juncture, one so applied for universally
affordability. Although not a convincing one when, especially,
practically where that market indeed would lie, being in handheld *NIX
dependency operand subsets run from candy-flavored droid systems.
Rootkits where firmware circumvention is possible are far more
intriguing, much to a kindred spirit then, yet are seen allied to a
fuller expectancy of resources from a proper Intel instruction sets,
nonetheless, obsequious to computer resources and interface convenient
to augment their conventions by such as USB linkage. Although
potential benefits indeed are an astounding attestation to
advancement, still, that 8" entry backlit display on Bozo's FireHD
Amazon tablet, reasonably on sale at under $50/US, is scarcely
distinguishable, if and at that level, from a true Chinese
Surveillance State whence its impetus, the wholesale societal adoption
of "Asian answer" to Microsoft, is derived.

Slightly OT - Texas Instruments ad from 1977 - Two Bytes are better than one
 

On Sun, 29 Mar 2020 20:56:12 -0400, Flasherly
wrote:

On Sun, 29 Mar 2020 14:51:37 -0500,
(MummyChunk) wrote:

Oh- how far we have come with computers. Seeing this ad really gave a
reminder today.

A niche marketing, though significant at least for developed countries
and an interest capable then to afford a relative specialty provided
at higher to exponential costs. Instrumental grade entities, though
not to be underplayed, as in the case of early HP's RPN calculators. A
180-shift in phase whereby to place a similar liking for a Raspberry
Pi, UK's present answer to at least in economically positioning the Pi
at an affordable juncture, one so applied for universally
affordability. Although not a convincing one when, especially,
practically where that market indeed would lie, being in handheld *NIX
dependency operand subsets run from candy-flavored droid systems.
Rootkits where firmware circumvention is possible are far more
intriguing, much to a kindred spirit then, yet are seen allied to a
fuller expectancy of resources from a proper Intel instruction sets,
nonetheless, obsequious to computer resources and interface convenient
to augment their conventions by such as USB linkage. Although
potential benefits indeed are an astounding attestation to
advancement, still, that 8" entry backlit display on Bozo's FireHD
Amazon tablet, reasonably on sale at under $50/US, is scarcely
distinguishable, if and at that level, from a true Chinese
Surveillance State whence its impetus, the wholesale societal adoption
of "Asian answer" to Microsoft, is derived.

Happy to see a mention of HP's RPN calculators. I'd say the best made
claculators "ever". I still have 2 HP 15C's and a 16C, all still work
fine and I still prefer them to any others. I wouldn't sell them, but
I'd bet they are worth more now than when they were new (and no, I
don't remember what they cost).

Slightly OT - Texas Instruments ad from 1977 - Two Bytes are better than one
 

On Sun, 29 Mar 2020 22:06:02 -0500, Charlie Hoffpauir
wrote:

Happy to see a mention of HP's RPN calculators. I'd say the best made
claculators "ever". I still have 2 HP 15C's and a 16C, all still work
fine and I still prefer them to any others. I wouldn't sell them, but
I'd bet they are worth more now than when they were new (and no, I
don't remember what they cost).

Expensive, some HPs included insertable modules for modifying their
application. I have them, better unit models (possibly not the
programmable unit above). Three HP calculators ported to a DOS
program to correspond to simulations to three popular HP RPN models.
Quick dig: Several RPNs, not all HP, just not the three HP models I'm
thinking of, which I'd have to dig deeper with some UnixDOS ported
text utilities for better search operands. Better graphic calculators
are still expensive, just not as expensive as an aftermarket Pacific
Rim facsimile, not even near some of the deals to be found there.

A couple more other earlier models, anyway.

README.V30
This file lists the changes from version 2.2/2.3 of RPN to version
3.0. RPN is an MSDOS-based emulator of an HP-29C calculator, with
extensions. It assumes an 80x25 text display.

RPN is a calculating tool written by J.I. Landman to be
used primarily by scientists and engineers. RPN is basically a
calculator, with quite a bit of power. RPN is a useful and powerful
tool for those who regularly use Hewlett Packard calculators (such
as the HP-42S, after which RPN was modeled)