TI 990 architecture / was Re: TI-99/4A Floppies

[Allison]

>
>Subject: Re: TI 990 architecture / was Re: TI-99/4A Floppies
>   From: "Peter C. Wallace" <pcw at mesanet.com>
>   Date: Wed, 03 Oct 2007 10:13:12 -0700 (PDT)
>     To: "General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts" <cctalk at classiccmp.org>
>
>>
>> Actually 1980 was mid to late in the life of the TI9900 chip. The first
>> one I worked with was on a Technico Superstarter System, TI9900, 2k ram,
>> 1k prom (monitor ans line by line asm) and a 2708 eprom programmer on
>> one board. I still have it.  I purchased it at PCC '78 in in memory
>> serves Philly.  Fir the amount of resource on the board it was pretty
>> capable for systems of that day.
>
>
>
>That sure brings back memories. I also had a Technico SuperStarter (Two bytes 
>are better than one!) Eventually made a wire wrapped 32 KByte RAM card (using 

I still have mine and it's operational.

>TMS4060 non muxed 4K DRAMS), a 256x256 graphic display, A wire wrapped floppy 
>controller (8 inch with 16 KByte DRAM track buffer). The floppy was a 
>revelation after waiting for the papertape version of EAL (Editor Assembler 
>Linker?) to load.

Did do all that with mine.  Mostly used it for small playing and dumping 
2708 eproms.

>>> (Cheriton left before we actually got into using them at the software level
>>> and the distributed kernel would become the VKernel at Stanford on other hardware).
>>>
>>> Also, the description of the 9900 in Osborne's "An Introduction to
>>> Microcomputers, Vol II" ('76) fits well with my recollections of the 990/10.
>
>I think I chose the 9900 based on the Osborne book, it had the shortest 
>benchmark program...

Strikingly so. 

>Interestingly TI's MSP430 has an instruction set reminiscent of the 9900

Instruction sets tend to repeat and reoccur.


Allison