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MOS Technology 8502
The MOS Technology 8502 is an 8-bit microprocessor designed by MOS Technology and used in the Commodore 128 (C128). It is an improved version of the MOS Technology 6510, MOS 6510 used in the Commodore 64 (C64). It was manufactured using the HMOS process, allowing it to have higher transistor density, and lower cost, while dissipating less heat. The 8502 allows the C128 to run at double the clock rate of the C64 with some limitations. Description Memory access in 8-bit machines Common random access memory (RAM) of the Commodore C64-era allowed accesses at 2 MHz. If the CPU and display chip both shared the same memory to communicate, which was the common solution in the era when RAM was expensive, then one would normally have to have the CPU and video display controller, display chip chips mediate access to the bus so that only one of them used it at a time, generally by having one pause the other. Assuming the two chips require roughly equal access, that means the chips are pa ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
MOS Technology
MOS Technology, Inc. ("MOS" being short for Metal Oxide Semiconductor), later known as CSG (Commodore Semiconductor Group) and GMT Microelectronics, was a semiconductor design and fabrication company based in Audubon, Pennsylvania. It is most famous for its 6502 microprocessor and various designs for Commodore International's range of home computers. History Three former General Instrument executives, John Paivinen, Mort Jaffe and Don McLaughlin, formed MOS Technology in Valley Forge, Pennsylvania in 1969. The Allen-Bradley Company was looking to provide a second source for electronic calculators and their chips designed by Texas Instruments (TI). In 1970 Allen-Bradley acquired a majority interest in MOS Technology. In the early 1970s, TI decided to release their own line of calculators, instead of selling just the chips inside them, and introduced them at a price that was lower than the price of the chipset alone. Many early chip companies were reliant on sales of cal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
MOS Technology VIC-II
The VIC-II (Video Interface Chip II), specifically known as the MOS Technology 6567/8562/8564 (NTSC versions), 6569/8565/8566 (PAL), is the microchip tasked with generating Y/C video signals (combined to composite video in the RF modulator) and DRAM refresh signals in the Commodore 64 and C128 home computers. Succeeding MOS's original VIC (used in the VIC-20), the VIC-II was one of the two chips mainly responsible for the C64's success (the other chip being the 6581 SID). Development history The VIC-II chip was designed primarily by Al Charpentier and Charles Winterble at MOS Technology, Inc. as a successor to the MOS Technology 6560 "VIC". The team at MOS Technology had previously failed to produce two graphics chips named ''MOS Technology 6562'' for the Commodore TOI computer, and ''MOS Technology 6564'' for the Color PET, due to memory speed constraints. In order to construct the VIC-II, Charpentier and Winterble made a market survey of current home computers and video ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
65xx Microprocessors
The MOS Technology 65xx series is a family of 8-bit microprocessors from MOS Technology, based on the Motorola 6800 (introduced ca. 1975). The 65xx family included the 6502, used in home computers such as the Commodore PET and VIC-20, the Apple II, the Atari 800, and the British BBC Micro. The 6501 and 6502 have 40-pin DIP packages; the 6503, 6504, 6505, and 6507 are 28-pin DIP versions, for reduced chip and circuit board cost. In all of the 28-pin versions, the pin count is reduced by leaving off some of the high-order address pins and various combinations of function pins, making those functions unavailable. Typically, the 12 pins omitted are the three not connected (NC) pins, one of the two Vss pins, one of the clock pins, the SYNC pin, the set overflow (SO) pin, either the maskable interrupt or the non-maskable interrupt (NMI), and the four most-significant address lines (A12–A15) are the 12 pins omitted to reduce the pin count from 40 to 28. The omission of four addre ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
MOS Technology VDC
The 8563 Video Display Controller (VDC) was an integrated circuit produced by MOS Technology. It was used in the Commodore 128 (C128) computer to generate an 80-column (640×200 pixel) RGB video display, running alongside a VIC-II which supported Commodore 64-compatible graphics. The DCR models (as well as a few D-models) of the C128 used the later and more technically advanced 8568 DC controller. History and characteristics Originally intended for a planned (but unreleased) UNIX-based business computer based around the Zilog Z8000, Commodore designed the VDC into several prototype machines. Of these, only the Commodore 128 ever saw production. Unlike earlier MOS video chips such as the popular VIC-II, the VDC had dedicated video memory, 16 kilobytes (16,384 bytes; upgradable to 64 kilobytes, 65,536 bytes) in the original or "flat" C128 and 64 kilobytes in the C128DCR. This RAM was not directly accessible by the microprocessor. The 8563 was more difficult to produce than most ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Intel
Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 series of instruction sets, the instruction sets found in most personal computers (PCs). Incorporated in Delaware, Intel ranked No. 45 in the 2020 ''Fortune'' 500 list of the largest United States corporations by total revenue for nearly a decade, from 2007 to 2016 fiscal years. Intel supplies microprocessors for computer system manufacturers such as Acer, Lenovo, HP, and Dell. Intel also manufactures motherboard chipsets, network interface controllers and integrated circuits, flash memory, graphics chips, embedded processors and other devices related to communications and computing. Intel (''int''egrated and ''el''ectronics) was founded on July 18, 1968, by semiconductor pioneers Gordon Moore (of Moore's law) and Robert Noyce ( ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
BBC Micro
The British Broadcasting Corporation Microcomputer System, or BBC Micro, is a series of microcomputers and associated peripherals designed and built by Acorn Computers in the 1980s for the BBC Computer Literacy Project. Designed with an emphasis on education, it was notable for its ruggedness, expandability, and the quality of its operating system. An accompanying 1982 television series, ''The Computer Programme'', featuring Chris Serle learning to use the machine, was broadcast on BBC2. After the Literacy Project's call for bids for a computer to accompany the TV programmes and literature, Acorn won the contract with the ''Proton'', a successor of its Atom computer prototyped at short notice. Renamed the BBC Micro, the system was adopted by most schools in the United Kingdom, changing Acorn's fortunes. It was also successful as a home computer in the UK, despite its high cost. Acorn later employed the machine to simulate and develop the ARM architecture. While nine models ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Atari 8-bit Family
The Atari 8-bit family is a series of 8-bit home computers introduced by Atari, Inc. in 1979 as the Atari 400 and Atari 800. The series was successively upgraded to Atari 1200XL , Atari 600XL, Atari 800XL, Atari 65XE, Atari 130XE, Atari 800XE, and Atari XEGS, the last discontinued in 1992. They differ primarily in packaging, each based on the MOS Technology 6502 central processing unit, CPU at and the same custom coprocessor chips. As the first home computer architecture with coprocessors, it has graphics and sound more advanced than most contemporary machines. Video games were a major draw, and first-person space combat simulator ''Star Raiders'' is considered the platform's killer app. The plug-and-play peripherals use the Atari SIO serial bus, with one developer eventually also co-patenting USB. While using the same internal technology, the Atari 800 was sold as a high-end model, while the 400 was more affordable. The 400 has a pressure-sensitive, spillproof membrane keyboar ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Apple II
The Apple II (stylized as ) is an 8-bit home computer and one of the world's first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products. It was designed primarily by Steve Wozniak; Jerry Manock developed the design of Apple II's foam-molded plastic case, Rod Holt developed the switching power supply, while Steve Jobs's role in the design of the computer was limited to overseeing Jerry Manock's work on the plastic case. It was introduced by Jobs and Wozniak at the 1977 West Coast Computer Faire, and marks Apple's first launch of a personal computer aimed at a consumer market—branded toward American households rather than businessmen or computer hobbyists. ''Byte'' magazine referred to the Apple II, Commodore PET 2001, and TRS-80 as the "1977 Trinity". As the Apple II had the defining feature of being able to display color graphics, the Apple logo was redesigned to have a spectrum of colors. The Apple II is the first model in the Apple II series, followed by Apple ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Commodore PET
The Commodore PET is a line of personal computers produced starting in 1977 by Commodore International. A single all-in-one case combines a MOS Technology 6502 microprocessor, Commodore BASIC in read-only memory, keyboard, monochrome monitor, and, in early models, a cassette deck. Development of the system began in 1976, and a prototype was demonstrated at the January 1977 Consumer Electronics Show. The name "PET" was suggested by Andre Souson after he saw the Pet Rock in Los Gatos, and stated they were going to make the "pet computer". It was backronymed to Personal Electronic Transactor. A series of problems delayed production versions until December 1977, by which time the TRS-80 and Apple II had already begun deliveries. ''Byte'' referred to the three machines collectively as the "1977 trinity". Following the initial PET 2001, the design was updated through a series of models with more memory, better keyboard, larger screen, and other modifications. The systems were a top ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Main Memory
Computer data storage is a technology consisting of computer components and recording media that are used to retain digital data. It is a core function and fundamental component of computers. The central processing unit (CPU) of a computer is what manipulates data by performing computations. In practice, almost all computers use a storage hierarchy, which puts fast but expensive and small storage options close to the CPU and slower but less expensive and larger options further away. Generally, the fast volatile technologies (which lose data when off power) are referred to as "memory", while slower persistent technologies are referred to as "storage". Even the first computer designs, Charles Babbage's Analytical Engine and Percy Ludgate's Analytical Machine, clearly distinguished between processing and memory (Babbage stored numbers as rotations of gears, while Ludgate stored numbers as displacements of rods in shuttles). This distinction was extended in the Von Neumann arch ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Video Display Controller
A video display controller or VDC (also called a display engine or display interface) is an integrated circuit which is the main component in a video-signal generator, a device responsible for the production of a TV video signal in a computing or game system. Some VDCs also generate an audio signal, but that is not their main function. VDCs were used in the home computers of the 1980s and also in some early video picture systems. The VDC is the main component of the video signal generator logic, responsible for generating the timing of video signals such as the horizontal and vertical synchronization signals and the blanking interval signal. Sometimes other supporting chips were necessary to build a complete system, such as RAM to hold pixel data, ROM to hold character fonts, or some discrete logic such as shift registers. Most often the VDC chip is completely integrated in the logic of the main computer system, (its video RAM appears in the memory map of the main CPU), bu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
