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Zilog ZEUS
The Z8000 ("''zee-'' or ''zed-eight-thousand''") is a 16-bit microprocessor introduced by Zilog in early 1979. The architecture was designed by Bernard Peuto while the logic and physical implementation was done by Masatoshi Shima, assisted by a small group of people. In contrast to most designs of the era, the Z8000 did not use microcode which allowed it to be implemented in only 17,500 transistors. The Z8000 was not Z80-compatible, although it featured many of the well-received design notes that made the Z80 popular. Among these was the ability for its registers to be combined and used as a single larger register - while the Z80 allowed two 8-bit registers to be used as a single 16-bit register, the Z8000 expanded this by allowing two 16-bit registers to operate as a 32-bit register, or four to operate as a 64-bit register. These combined registers were particularly useful for mathematical operations. Although it was an attractive design for its era, and saw some use in the ea ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zilog
Zilog, Inc. is an American manufacturer of microprocessors and 8-bit and 16-bit microcontrollers. It is also a supplier of application-specific embedded system-on-chip (SoC) products. Its most famous product is the Z80 series of 8-bit microprocessors that were compatible with the Intel 8080 but significantly cheaper. The Z80 was widely used during the 1980s in many popular home computers such as the TRS-80, MSX, Amstrad CPC and the ZX Spectrum, as well as arcade games such as '' Pac-Man''. The company also made 16- and 32-bit processors, but these did not see widespread use. From the 1990s, the company focused primarily on the microcontroller market. The name (pronunciation varies) is an acronym of ''Z integrated logic'', also thought of as "Z for the last word of Integrated Logic". In the oral history interview video which Federico Faggin (co-founder of Zilog) recorded for the Computer History Museum, he pronounced Zilog with a long "i" () consistently. History Zilog was ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Overflow Flag
In computer processors, the overflow flag (sometimes called the V flag) is usually a single bit in a system status register used to indicate when an arithmetic overflow has occurred in an operation, indicating that the signed Two's complement, two's-complement result would not fit in the number of bits used for the result. Some architectures may be configured to automatically generate an exception on an operation resulting in overflow. An example, suppose we add 127 and 127 using 8-bit registers. 127+127 is 254, but using 8-bit arithmetic the result would be 1111 1110 binary, which is the two's complement encoding of −2, a negative number. A negative sum of positive operands (or vice versa) is an overflow. The overflow flag would then be set so the program can be aware of the problem and mitigate this or signal an error. The overflow flag is thus set when the most significant bit (here considered the sign bit) is changed by adding two numbers with the same sign (or subtracting ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Context Switch
In computing, a context switch is the process of storing the state of a process or thread, so that it can be restored and resume execution at a later point, and then restoring a different, previously saved, state. This allows multiple processes to share a single central processing unit (CPU), and is an essential feature of a multitasking operating system. The precise meaning of the phrase "context switch" varies. In a multitasking context, it refers to the process of storing the system state for one task, so that task can be paused and another task resumed. A context switch can also occur as the result of an interrupt, such as when a task needs to access disk storage, freeing up CPU time for other tasks. Some operating systems also require a context switch to move between user mode and kernel mode tasks. The process of context switching can have a negative impact on system performance. Cost Context switches are usually computationally intensive, and much of the design of opera ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Supervisor Mode
In computer science, hierarchical protection domains, often called protection rings, are mechanisms to protect data and functionality from faults (by improving fault tolerance) and malicious behavior (by providing computer security). Computer operating systems provide different levels of access to resources. A protection ring is one of two or more hierarchical ''levels'' or ''layers'' of privilege within the architecture of a computer system. This is generally hardware-enforced by some CPU architectures that provide different CPU modes at the hardware or microcode level. Rings are arranged in a hierarchy from most privileged (most trusted, usually numbered zero) to least privileged (least trusted, usually with the highest ring number). Ring 0 is the level with the most privileges and allows direct interaction with the physical hardware such as certain CPU functionality and chips on the motherboard. Special call gates between rings are provided to allow an outer ring to acces ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
User Mode
A modern computer operating system usually segregates virtual memory into user space and kernel space. Primarily, this separation serves to provide memory protection and hardware protection from malicious or errant software behaviour. Kernel space is strictly reserved for running a privileged operating system kernel, kernel extensions, and most device drivers. In contrast, user space is the memory area where application software and some drivers execute. Overview The term user space (or userland) refers to all code that runs outside the operating system's kernel. User space usually refers to the various programs and libraries that the operating system uses to interact with the kernel: software that performs input/output, manipulates file system objects, application software, etc. Each user space process normally runs in its own virtual memory space, and, unless explicitly allowed, cannot access the memory of other processes. This is the basis for memory protection in today' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Program Counter
The program counter (PC), commonly called the instruction pointer (IP) in Intel x86 and Itanium microprocessors, and sometimes called the instruction address register (IAR), the instruction counter, or just part of the instruction sequencer, is a processor register that indicates where a computer is in its program sequence. Usually, the PC is incremented after fetching an instruction, and holds the memory address of (" points to") the next instruction that would be executed. Processors usually fetch instructions sequentially from memory, but ''control transfer'' instructions change the sequence by placing a new value in the PC. These include branches (sometimes called jumps), subroutine calls, and returns. A transfer that is conditional on the truth of some assertion lets the computer follow a different sequence under different conditions. A branch provides that the next instruction is fetched from elsewhere in memory. A subroutine call not only branches but saves the preced ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pointer (computer Programming)
In computer science, a pointer is an object in many programming languages that stores a memory address. This can be that of another value located in computer memory, or in some cases, that of memory-mapped computer hardware. A pointer ''references'' a location in memory, and obtaining the value stored at that location is known as ''dereferencing'' the pointer. As an analogy, a page number in a book's index could be considered a pointer to the corresponding page; dereferencing such a pointer would be done by flipping to the page with the given page number and reading the text found on that page. The actual format and content of a pointer variable is dependent on the underlying computer architecture. Using pointers significantly improves performance for repetitive operations, like traversing iterable data structures (e.g. strings, lookup tables, control tables and tree structures). In particular, it is often much cheaper in time and space to copy and dereference pointers th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stack (data Structure)
In computer science, a stack is an abstract data type that serves as a collection of elements, with two main operations: * Push, which adds an element to the collection, and * Pop, which removes the most recently added element that was not yet removed. Additionally, a peek operation can, without modifying the stack, return the value of the last element added. Calling this structure a ''stack'' is by analogy to a set of physical items stacked one atop another, such as a stack of plates. The order in which an element added to or removed from a stack is described as last in, first out, referred to by the acronym LIFO. As with a stack of physical objects, this structure makes it easy to take an item off the top of the stack, but accessing a datum deeper in the stack may require taking off multiple other items first. Considered as a linear data structure, or more abstractly a sequential collection, the push and pop operations occur only at one end of the structure, referred to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Segmentation Fault
In computing, a segmentation fault (often shortened to segfault) or access violation is a fault, or failure condition, raised by hardware with memory protection, notifying an operating system (OS) the software has attempted to access a restricted area of memory (a memory access violation). On standard x86 computers, this is a form of general protection fault. The operating system kernel will, in response, usually perform some corrective action, generally passing the fault on to the offending process by sending the process a signal. Processes can in some cases install a custom signal handler, allowing them to recover on their own,''Expert C programming: deep C secrets'' By Peter Van der Linden, page 188 but otherwise the OS default signal handler is used, generally causing abnormal termination of the process (a program crash), and sometimes a core dump. Segmentation faults are a common class of error in programs written in languages like C that provide low-level memory access and ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Virtual Memory
In computing, virtual memory, or virtual storage is a memory management technique that provides an "idealized abstraction of the storage resources that are actually available on a given machine" which "creates the illusion to users of a very large (main) memory". The computer's operating system, using a combination of hardware and software, maps memory addresses used by a program, called '' virtual addresses'', into ''physical addresses'' in computer memory. Main storage, as seen by a process or task, appears as a contiguous address space or collection of contiguous segments. The operating system manages virtual address spaces and the assignment of real memory to virtual memory. Address translation hardware in the CPU, often referred to as a memory management unit (MMU), automatically translates virtual addresses to physical addresses. Software within the operating system may extend these capabilities, utilizing, e.g., disk storage, to provide a virtual address space that ca ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Dual Inline Package
In microelectronics, a dual in-line package (DIP or DIL), is an electronic component package with a rectangular housing and two parallel rows of electrical connecting pins. The package may be through-hole mounted to a printed circuit board (PCB) or inserted in a socket. The dual-inline format was invented by Don Forbes, Rex Rice and Bryant Rogers at Fairchild R&D in 1964, when the restricted number of leads available on circular transistor-style packages became a limitation in the use of integrated circuits. Increasingly complex circuits required more signal and power supply leads (as observed in Rent's rule); eventually microprocessors and similar complex devices required more leads than could be put on a DIP package, leading to development of higher-density chip carriers. Furthermore, square and rectangular packages made it easier to route printed-circuit traces beneath the packages. A DIP is usually referred to as a DIP''n'', where ''n'' is the total number of pins. For ex ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Address Bus
In computer architecture, a bus (shortened form of the Latin '' omnibus'', and historically also called data highway or databus) is a communication system that transfers data between components inside a computer, or between computers. This expression covers all related hardware components (wire, optical fiber, etc.) and software, including communication protocols. Early computer buses were parallel electrical wires with multiple hardware connections, but the term is now used for any physical arrangement that provides the same logical function as a parallel electrical busbar. Modern computer buses can use both parallel and bit serial connections, and can be wired in either a multidrop (electrical parallel) or daisy chain topology, or connected by switched hubs, as in the case of Universal Serial Bus (USB). Background and nomenclature Computer systems generally consist of three main parts: * The central processing unit (CPU) that processes data, * The memory that holds the p ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
