HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Possibly the best-known 12-bit CPU is the
PDP-8 The PDP-8 is a 12-bit minicomputer that was produced by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC). It was the first commercially successful minicomputer, with over 50,000 units being sold over the model's lifetime. Its basic design follows the pioneer ...
and its relatives, such as the
Intersil 6100 The Intersil 6100 is a single-chip microprocessor implementation of the 12-bit PDP-8 instruction set, along with a range of peripheral support and memory ICs developed by Intersil in the mid-1970s. It was sometimes referred to as the CMOS-PDP8 ...
microprocessor produced in various forms from August 1963 to mid-1990. Many analog to digital converters (ADCs) have a 12-bit resolution. Some PIC microcontrollers use a 12-bit word size. 12 binary digits, or 3 nibbles (a 'tribble'), have 4096 (10000
octal The octal numeral system, or oct for short, is the radix, base-8 number system, and uses the Numerical digit, digits 0 to 7. This is to say that 10octal represents eight and 100octal represents sixty-four. However, English, like most languages, ...
, 1000
hexadecimal In mathematics and computing, the hexadecimal (also base-16 or simply hex) numeral system is a positional numeral system that represents numbers using a radix (base) of 16. Unlike the decimal system representing numbers using 10 symbols, he ...
) distinct combinations. Hence, a microprocessor with 12-bit memory addresses can directly access 4096
words A word is a basic element of language that carries an objective or practical meaning, can be used on its own, and is uninterruptible. Despite the fact that language speakers often have an intuitive grasp of what a word is, there is no conse ...
(4 Kw) of word-addressable memory. At a time when six-bit character codes were common a 12-bit word, which could hold two characters, was a convenient size. IBM
System/360 The IBM System/360 (S/360) is a family of mainframe computer systems that was announced by IBM on April 7, 1964, and delivered between 1965 and 1978. It was the first family of computers designed to cover both commercial and scientific applica ...
instruction formats use a 12-bit displacement field which, added to the contents of a base register, can address 4096 bytes of memory.


List of 12-bit computer systems

*
Digital Equipment Corporation Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC ), using the trademark Digital, was a major American company in the computer industry from the 1960s to the 1990s. The company was co-founded by Ken Olsen and Harlan Anderson in 1957. Olsen was president un ...
**
PDP-5 The PDP-5 was Digital Equipment Corporation's first 12-bit computer, introduced in 1963. History An earlier 12-bit computer, named LINC has been described as the first minicomputer and also "the first modern personal computer." It had 2,048 12- ...
**
PDP-8 The PDP-8 is a 12-bit minicomputer that was produced by Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC). It was the first commercially successful minicomputer, with over 50,000 units being sold over the model's lifetime. Its basic design follows the pioneer ...
*** DECmate, a personal computer based on the Intersil 6100 ** PDP-12 **
PDP-14 The PDP-14 was a specialized computer from Digital Equipment Corporation’s Industrial Products Group designed to replace industrial level relay controls for machinery and machine tools that performed repetitive tasks. It was specifically designed ...
* Ford EEC I automotive engine control unit **
Toshiba TLCS-12 TLCS is a prefix applied to microcontrollers made by Toshiba. The product line includes multiple families of CISC and RISC architectures. Individual components generally have a part number beginning with "TMP". E.g. the TMP8048AP is a memb ...
microprocessor * Intersil IM6100 microprocessor (PDP-8-compatible) *
Control Data Corporation Control Data Corporation (CDC) was a mainframe and supercomputer firm. CDC was one of the nine major United States computer companies through most of the 1960s; the others were IBM, Burroughs Corporation, DEC, NCR, General Electric, Honeywe ...
**
CDC 160 series The CDC 160 series was a series of minicomputers built by Control Data Corporation. The CDC 160 and CDC 160-A were 12-bit minicomputers built from 1960 to 1965; the CDC 160G was a 13-bit minicomputer, with an extended version of the CDC 160-A ins ...
computers **
CDC 6600 The CDC 6600 was the flagship of the 6000 series of mainframe computer systems manufactured by Control Data Corporation. Generally considered to be the first successful supercomputer, it outperformed the industry's prior recordholder, the IBM ...
- Peripheral Processor (PP) *
National Cash Register NCR Corporation, previously known as National Cash Register, is an American software, consulting and technology company providing several professional services and electronic products. It manufactures self-service kiosks, point-of-sale termin ...
NCR 315 * Scientific Data Systems SDS 92 * Nuclear Data, Inc. ND812 * PC12 minicomputer *
Ferranti Argus Ferranti's Argus computers were a line of industrial control computers offered from the 1960s into the 1980s. Originally designed for a military role, a re-packaged Argus was the first digital computer to be used to directly control an entire fact ...
*
LINC The LINC (Laboratory INstrument Computer) is a 12-bit, 2048-word transistorized computer. The LINC is considered by some the first minicomputer and a forerunner to the personal computer. Originally named the "Linc", suggesting the project's or ...
, later commercialized by DEC as the LINC-8 * Electronic Arrays 9002 (12-bit addressing but 8-bit byte)


See also

*
FAT12 File Allocation Table (FAT) is a file system developed for personal computers. Originally developed in 1977 for use on floppy disks, it was adapted for use on hard disks and other devices. It is often supported for compatibility reasons by ...
, a file system with 12-bit wide cluster entries


References


External links


DIGITAL Computing Timeline: 12-bit architecture
Computer data {{computer-hardware-stub