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Article #621034Re: Why so many 6s and 8s in the 70s?
From: Charles Richmond
Date: Wed, 28 Feb 2018 23:24
Date: Wed, 28 Feb 2018 23:24
34 lines
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3189 bytes
On 2/27/2018 3:25 PM, Quadibloc wrote: > On Tuesday, February 27, 2018 at 1:28:52 PM UTC-7, Andreas Kohlbach wrote: >> When you look at microprocessors up to the very late 70s you might notice >> many of them have a 6 and/or 8 in their names. Like the 6502, 8080, 8086, >> Z80, M680X, M680XY... > >> Is this a coincidence or a pattern behind that? > > Well, the MOS Technology 6502 was intended to be "similar" to the Motorola 6800, > and thus a cheaper alternative to it. > > The number 8 is considered a lucky number among the Chinese - but those > processors acted on 8-bit bytes. And the Z80 was intended to be a replacement > for the 8080, offering a bunch of new additional functions. > Also, since Motorola began with the 6800, it was logical for another 8-bit to be 6809. Then the 16 adne 32 bit micros would be 68000 plus some other distinguishing number: 010, 020, 030, 040, 060, etc. So with Intel: 4040, 8008, 8080, 8085, 8086, 8088... then later the 80... 286, 386, 486... hen the Pentium I, II, III... and now to the myriad of processors with unordered names and multiple cores. Intel also put out 8-bit micro-controllers like the 8051, 8048, 8042, etc... ISTM the keyboard controller on the original IBM PC was an Intel 8042. Now of course there is a custom chip. I saw a broken open Dec VT220 once... it was run rather slowly by an Intel 8048. Let's not forget the Fairchild F-8, the Signetics 2650, and the National Semiconductor SC/MP "scamp". -- numerist at aquaporin4 dot com
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X-Received: by 10.36.47.132 with SMTP id j126mr132684itj.43.1519860263318; Wed, 28 Feb 2018 15:24:23 -0800 (PST) X-BeenThere: alt.folklore.computers@googlegroups.com Received: by 10.36.208.148 with SMTP id m142ls1208585itg.4.gmail; Wed, 28 Feb 2018 15:24:22 -0800 (PST) X-Received: by 10.36.236.3 with SMTP id g3mr196265ith.32.1519860262184; Wed, 28 Feb 2018 15:24:22 -0800 (PST) Path: mbox-mo1.pugleaf.net!a2ni2546ite.0!nntp.google.com!border1.nntp.dca1.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!goblin2!goblin1!goblin.stu.neva.ru!eternal-september.org!feeder.eternal-september.org!reader02.eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail From: Charles Richmond <nume...@aquaporin4.com> Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Why so many 6s and 8s in the 70s? Date: Wed, 28 Feb 2018 17:24:21 -0600 Organization: A noiseless patient Spider Lines: 34 Message-ID: <p77dn5$uj6$1@dont-email.me> References: <87sh9m9ny5.fsf@usenet.ankman.de> <c63e7d1c-a4ac-45e3-8ec6-8be10e221dc6@googlegroups.com> Reply-To: nume...@aquaporin4.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Injection-Date: Wed, 28 Feb 2018 23:24:21 -0000 (UTC) Injection-Info: reader02.eternal-september.org; posting-host="1c9a9df04f729b946f6dcfd692698680"; logging-data="31334"; mail-complaints-to="ab...@eternal-september.org"; posting-account="U2FsdGVkX183oPUgL+/B1fsSz9Noj0R8tnqiazHokFw=" User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; WOW64; rv:52.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/52.6.0 In-Reply-To: <c63e7d1c-a4ac-45e3-8ec6-8be10e221dc6@googlegroups.com> Cancel-Lock: sha1:d4GkQlblwFoBEL/SOYMaiGJTWSM= Bytes: 2839 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit