In the 1970’s many companies began to make processors based on mainframe architectures of the time. Data General with the creation of the mN601 MicroNova, TI with the TMS9900, DEC with the LSI-11 and others. This set the stage for a pretty large showdown, as what happens when a company other then the original mainframe company creates a processor that is compatible? This is what began to happen in the late 1970’and with the release of Fairchild F9440 MICROFLAME. We’ll quote directly from the F9440 datasheet “Though structurally different from the CPUs of the Data General NOVA line of minicomputers, the 9440 offers comparable performance and executes the same instruction set.” Specifically the bi-polar F9440 could.
Link: CPU of the Day: Fairchild F9445: The MicroFlame Flames Out
via http://www.cpushack.com
Techie.Buzz 