DOCSLIB.ORG

Acorn Risc PC Technical Reference Manual

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Acorn Risc PC Technical Reference Manual Acorn Rise PC Technical Reference Manual Copyright © Acorn Computers Limited 1994. All rights reserved. Published by Acorn Computers Technical Publications Department. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, or stored in any retrieval system of any nature, without the written permission of the copyright holder and the publisher, application for which shall be made to the publisher. The product described in the manual is not intended for use as a critical component in life support devices or any system in which failure could be expected to result in personal injury. The products described in this manual are subject to continuous development and improvement. All information of a technical nature and particulars of the products and their use (including the information and particulars in this manual) are given by Acorn Computers Limited in good faith . However, Acorn Computers Limited cannot accept any liability for any loss or damage arising from the use of any information or particulars in this manual, or any incorrect use of the products. All maintenance and service on the products must be carried out by Acorn Computers' authorised dealers or Approved Service Centres. Acorn Computers Limited can accept no liability whatsoever for any loss or damage caused by service, maintenance or repair by unauthorised personnel. If you have any comments on this manual, please complete the form at the back of the manual and send it to the address given there. Acorn supplies its products through an international distribution network. Your supplier is available to help resolve any queries you may have. ACORN , ARCHIMEDES and ECONET are trademarks of Acorn Computers Limited. ARM is a trademark of Advanced RISC Machines Ltd. IBM is a trademark of International Business Machines Corporation. All other copyrights are acknowledged. Published by Acorn Computers Limited ISBN 1 85250 144 8 Part number 0497,057 Issue 1, September 1994 Acorn Rise PC Technical Reference Manual Contents About this manual iv Safety iv Part 1 - System description 1-1 Introduction 1-1 CPU and control 1-3 Memory system 1-10 Video and audio system 1-14 Peripheral control 1-18 Expansion and 1/0 system 1-19 Part 2 - Interface specifications 2-1 ( Introduction 2-1 Keyboard and mouse 2-1 Serial port 2-6 Parallel port 2-9 Video system 2-12 Audio system 2-15 OPEN Bus 2-16 DRAM SIMMs 2-23 VRAM 2-25 Floppy drive 2-29 IDE- hard disc 2-35 Links, plugs and sockets 2-44 Part 3- Parts lists 3-1 Rise PC main PCB assembly parts list 3-1 Rise PC 2W Backplane PCB assembly parts list 3-6 Rise PC 4W Backplane PCB assembly parts list 3-6 Rise PC 2MB HD final assembly parts list 3-7 Rise PC 5MB HD final assembly parts list 3-8 Rise PC 9MB HD final assembly parts list 3-9 Rise PC ARM61 0 PCB assembly parts list 3-10 Rise PC VRAM 1MB PCB assembly parts list 3-11 Rise PC VRAM 2MB PCB assembly parts list 3-11 Appendix A - Power On Self Test A-1 Appendix B - Monitor adaptor cables B-1 Appendix C - Engineering drawings C-1 Appendix D - System chipset pinouts D-1 Appendix E - Mechanical and electrical data E-1 Contents Issue 1, September 1994 iii Acorn Rise PC Technical Reference Manual About this manual Important: Issue numbers The following publications are appended to this manual: This manual is intended as a hardware reference manual for the Acorn Rise PC . • Acorn Guidelines for Safety Testing This manual supplements the basic information given on • Acorn Network Card Mk II Specification system hardware in the Acorn Rise PC Welcome Guide. • Acorn Enhanced Expansion Card Specification The operating system is covered at the user level in the The above publications, together with the parts lists and RISC OS 3 User Guide for the Rise PC, supplied with the schematics contained in this manual, are all supplied at computer (also available for separate purchase). latest issue, correct at time of printing. Programmers and users requiring a greater depth of information about RISC OS will also need the RISC OS 3 Programmer's Reference Manual, which is available from Safety Acorn authorised dealers. Additional detail covering the Acorn Rise PC can be These machines have been designed and certified to found in the RISC OS 3 Programmer's Reference meet the requirements of the safety standard Manual version 3.5 supplement (available from Acorn EN60950/BS7002. In order to meet the flammability authorised dealers). This is supplied with a full index requirements of this standard, the machines utilise flame­ covering both the RISC OS 3 Programmer's Reference retardant components. As such, they should not be Manual and the RISC OS 3 Programmer's Reference operated without all of the case plastics and metalwork Manual version 3.5 supplement. securely fitted in place. In addition, any upgrades or modifications must not compromise these safety For datasheets covering the ARM61 0 and ARM700 measures. For further advice see the Acorn Enhanced contact: Expansion Card Specification (Part number 0472,200). ARM Ltd. For checking electrical safety of the equipment after Fulbourn Road repair, or to satisfy Health and Safety regulations, see the Cherry Hinton publication on Acorn Guidelines for Safety Testing Cambridge appended to this manual. CB1 4JN UK. Tel: 0223 400400 For datasheets covering the SMC FDC37C665, contact: Standard Microsystems Corporation 80, Arkay Drive Hauppage NY 11788 USA Tel: (516) 435-6000 For further information on the Rise PC range, contact: Acorn Computers Technical Support Department Acorn House Vision Park Histon Cambridge CB4 4AE UK. Note: This manual describes various PCB assemblies. The issue of each PCB is as defined by the relevant schematic. ---------------- iv Issue 1, September 1994 Contents Acorn Rise PC Technical Reference Manual Part 1 - System description Introduction A new version of RISC OS 3 is provided with these machines in two 1 MB ROMS on the main PCB. This The Acorn Rise PC family is built around the Advanced version, 3.50, provides all the necessary software and Rise Machines (ARM) chipset, comprising the ARM user interfaces to make use of the hardware: for instance, processor, the 1/0 and Memory controller (10M D) and the a new screen mode selector to cater for the increased Video Controller (VI DC). All products feature IOMD and number of screen modes available with VI DC 20. Some VI DC 20 and offer the following features: other functional improvements over version 3.11 have • DMA Enhanced Bus Interface (DEBI)- where also been included. The reader is referred to the capabilities include 32-bit data transfer and the RISC OS 3 User Guide for the Rise PC and RISC OS 3 support of up to two general purpose DMA channels Programmer's Reference Manual, Vol. 5 (version 3.5 for transfer between 1/0 and memory supplement) for further details. • PC-AT compatible keyboard interface • Support for Video RAM (VRAM) System chipset: ARM, IOMD, VIDC and • 1-, 2-, 4- , 8-, 16- & 32-bit pixel depths peripheral controller • Pixel rates in excess of 11 0 MHz • Support for up to 256 MB of DRAM via two DRAM ARM SIMM sockets From the ARM 600 onwards, all ARM processors provide • Interchangeable ARM CPU card a full 32-bit address bus and a 32-bit program counter. The ARM 6x0 and 7x0 also have the ability to be • OPEN Bus connector for second bus master or configured in a 26-bit address space mode for either additional CPU . instruction fetches or data operations. RISC OS 3 version A block diagram of the main system components is 3.5 operates in 26-bit address space for instruction shown in Figure 1.1 overleaf. fetches and 32-bit address space for data access. The ARM61 0 (and 700) also feature 4KB and 8KB caches respectively and both use write-back buffers to improve General on chip memory performance. Both devices also feature Initially, model variants feature either an ARM 610 or an on-board memory management un it (MMU) with a ARM700 processor with the option for a Floating Point 4KB page size. Accelerator (FPA) to plug in alongside the ARM700. The processor is resident on a small plug in card which fits in IOMD to one of the two 'OPEN Bus' slots on the main PCB. From the ARM600 onwards, the Memory Management Variants are also likely to appear which feature an lntel­ Unit is integrated within the ARM CPU. This has allowed based processor resident in the second OPEN Bus slot. memory control and refresh (previously provided by MEMC), 10 control (previously provided by IOC) and PC The number of expansion bus slots available is either specific 1/0 signals to drive the PC Combo device none, 2 or 4 (with architectural support for up to 8) . The (previously provided by lOEB) together with some new backplane PCBs are easily interchangeable as they plug functionality to be implemented in one device: the 1/0 into the 132-way edge connector on the main PCB. A Memory Device, or IOMD. Essentially, IOMD provides network slot is provided so that adding network capability the following: does not detract from the number of free expansion card slots available. This new Acorn propriety interface is , • direct interface to ARM61 0 or ARM700 therefore, incompatible with the existing A30x0 and • DRAM control for 2 SIMMs providing 4 banks of DRAM A4000 network expansion cards. • VRAM control and interface to VIDC20, including Memory upgrading is provided for by the use of DRAM generation of transfer cycles Single In-line Memory Modules (SIMMs).
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Privateeye Is an Image Viewer for RISC OS
    Welcome PrivateEye is an image viewer for RISC OS. It requires RISC OS 3.6 or later and a Boot sequence with the Nested Wimp and a 32-bit Shared C Library. Features • Loads and displays bitmap and vector images • Sprites, JPEGs, GIFs and PNGs • DrawFiles and ArtWorks • Bitmap effects • Adjust gamma, brightness and contrast • Blur and sharpen • Change saturation and apply histogram effects • Alpha channel support • Bitmap rotation with interactive preview • Rotation is lossless for JPEGs • Native JPEG display using SpriteExtend • Inbuilt lossless “cleaning” transparently loads progressive JPEGs • JFIF, Exif and Adobe metadata information display • Multiple-channel histogram PrivateEye • Display images may be saved • Convert JPEGs, GIFs and PNGs to into Sprites Image Viewer • Any number of images may be open concurrently by David Thomas, © 1999–2017 • Customisable key map version 3.00 (08 Feb 2017) • Lots of interactive help (use it!) Supported Image Formats PrivateEye converts images as necessary into a JPEGs RISC OS-native format. This means that GIFs, PNGs and (optionally) JPEGs are converted into Sprite format when RISC OS’s SpriteExtend module, version 0.99 or later, is used they are loaded. to directly display JPEGs. This allows images larger than available free memory to be displayed by decompressing The converted image is referred to as the display image. and plotting on the fly. Operations such as saving, rotation and the effects system operate on the display image only. Progressive (multiple scan) JPEGs are supported. PrivateEye has an inbuilt version of jpegtran which automatically Sprites converts JPEGs into a baseline format that SpriteExtend can render.
    [Show full text]
  • Acorn User Display at the AAUG Stand During Will Be Featuring Denbridge Digital the RISC OS '99 Show at Epsom Race in More Depth in a Future Issue of the Course
    eD6st-§elling RISC OS magazine in the world 4^:^^ i I m Find out what Rf| ::j!:azj achines can do tau ISSUE 215 CHRISTMAS 1999 £4.20 1 1 1 1 1! House balls heavy (packol 10) £15 illSJ 640HS Media lot MO dri.c £|9 £!2J]| Mouse lor A7000/r- N/C CD 630t1B re-wriie niedia £10 fii.rs £S tS.il Mouse for all Aciirns (not etr) A70DQ CD 630MB vrriie once raedis (Pk ol Computers for Education £12 II4.II1 10) £|0 £11.15 Original mouse for all Atoms (not A7K) HARDWARE i £16 urn JAZ IGB midta £58 £68.15 Business and Home |AZ 2GB media PERIPHERALS £69 [i PD 630MS media SPECIAL OFFER! £18 tll.lS I Syid 1.5GB media £S8 £S!IS ISDN MODEM + FREE Syquest lOSMB media £45 [S28I ACORN A7000+ tOHniTERS FIXING K. SytfuestOiMB media £45 islSjl INTERNET CONNEaiON )f[|iit'iij![IMB media £45 tS2S slice lor ,!.:., 2d Rlst PC int 1 waj L jj) i( 1 Syqufit 770HB media £76 £45 (Sji? I A?000 4. Ciasm [D £499 hard drive liting kir 2x 64k bpi ehaniiels mil M IDE £|2 £14.10 Zip lOOHBraetfia £8 (Ml IS9xU0«40mm A7000+(l3isnhO £449 W.il i- baikplane (not il CO aJrody insialled) Zip mW £34 [3).!S iOOMB media 1; pack) £35 awl] ;;! footprint A71100+0(lyHeyCD £549 mil Fixing km for hard drives ^ £S ff.40 Zip2S0HBmedia £11.50 (I4.i .Wf^ »«* 2 analogue ports |aTODCH- Odysse)- Nmotk HoniiDr cable lor all £525 mm Acorn (lelecdon) £|0 fll iS | 30 I- Odyssey Primary £599 flOJ ai Podule mi lor A3D00 £|6 RISC OS UPGRADES 47000 I OdyssEc Setoiidary £599 Rise PC I slo[ backplane ISP trial mm ii4.B I Argonet I £29 A700Oi Rise OS 3.11 chip sti £20 am OdyssEr^uil £699 Lih.il SCSI I S II [abteclioice
    [Show full text]
  • GAG-NEWS 69 September/Oktober 2003 Hardware
    Hardware vielbeschworene Medusa-Nachfolger Hardware Abstrac- IYONIX pc vs. Omega tion Layer, kurz HAL). Steffen Huber Castle setzt ganz auf integrierte Kom- Nichtsdestotrotz ponenten aus dem PC-Markt. Das überzeugt RISC Ein altes englisches Sprichwort Herzstück, der XScale 80321 von Intel, OS 5 durch einen lautet sinngemäß: „Man wartet getaktet mit 600 MHz, beinhaltet Satz interessanter ewig auf den Bus, und dann kom- gleichzeitig den RAM-Controller (200 Features gegenüber men zwei gleichzeitig.“ Ungefähr MHz DDR-RAM) und den PCI-Buscon- Version 4: Fontmanager mit Unicode- so stellt sich derzeit die Situation troller (32bit/33 MHz und 64bit/66 Unterstützung, DHCP fürs Ethernet, im RISC OS-Markt dar. Nachdem MHz). Die Grafikkarte ist eine Stan- LanManFS mitgeliefert (inklusive Sup- man fast schon geologische Zeit- dard-PCI-Grafikkarte aus dem nVidia- port für lange Dateinamen), USB- räume auf einen würdigen Risc Stall (Geforce2 MX400), das on-board- Unterstützung, maximaler WimpSlot PC-Nachfolger gewartet hat, ist Netzwerk basiert auf einem Gigabit- von 1 GB pro Programm anstatt 28 MB, nun die Qual der Wahl angesagt: Ethernet-Chip von Intel, USB wird Support für bedeutend größere Parti- Der IYONIX pc von Castle Tech- über eine Standard-PCI-Karte realisiert, tionen sowie natürlich die unvermeid- nologies oder der Omega von Sound kommt von einem AC97-Chip- lichen Bugfixes und Optimierungen. MicroDigital? satz und die diversen Peripheriegeräte (UDMA-IDE, zwei serielle Ports) wer- Omegaseitig könnte man theoretisch den von einer Standard-Southbridge natürlich für rund 230 die neueste Die Testkandidaten sind ein IYONIX (über PCI angekoppelt) bereitgestellt, Select-Version (inklusive aller weiterer pc mit CD-Brenner, 512 MB RAM und wie man sie ebenfalls vom PC-Markt Versionen, die innerhalb eines Jahres 80er Platte, der Omega ist das Midi- kennt.
    [Show full text]
  • Acorn Risc Pc 600
    ACORN RISC PC 600 Acorn Acorns retort to the PowerMacs is an example of innovative design, with extensive expansion, the promise of RISC better cross-platform compatibility and graphics performance Archimedes owners only dreamed about. Ian PC 600 Burley gets a slice of the action. and CPU fans as the chip generates less than 1W of heat. Current ARM610s are 0.8 micron parts, and sample 0.6 micron parts are testing at 40MHz. One of the most striking aspects of the new RISC PC is its case, designed under the auspices of Allen Boothroyd, who designed the original BBC Micro and was a force behind hi-fi manufacturer Meridian. It is made of tough Bayer Bayblend ABS/Polycarbonate, which is used to make riot shields. Internal surfaces are coated to reduce radio frequency interference (RFI) but the external surface is an unpainted light grey. There is provision for screw-mounted peripherals inside but devices like CD-ROMs and hard disks will be clip-mounted Apple-style. Two twist-locking pins need to be turned 90° to get the case lid off. These can be padlocked and the case tethered. It takes less than a minute to open the case, swap processor modules and refit the lid, without any tools. Standard models have a slimline base case with ^ RISC PC Acorn Computers of Cambridge, and not their a two-expansion slot backplane; the front panel has a 600s get the colleagues from Cupertino, were the first to bring spring-loaded door to hide the floppy drive. If you need latest release affordable RISC computing to the masses.
    [Show full text]
  • Filesystems HOWTO Filesystems HOWTO Table of Contents Filesystems HOWTO
    Filesystems HOWTO Filesystems HOWTO Table of Contents Filesystems HOWTO..........................................................................................................................................1 Martin Hinner < [email protected]>, http://martin.hinner.info............................................................1 1. Introduction..........................................................................................................................................1 2. Volumes...............................................................................................................................................1 3. DOS FAT 12/16/32, VFAT.................................................................................................................2 4. High Performance FileSystem (HPFS)................................................................................................2 5. New Technology FileSystem (NTFS).................................................................................................2 6. Extended filesystems (Ext, Ext2, Ext3)...............................................................................................2 7. Macintosh Hierarchical Filesystem − HFS..........................................................................................3 8. ISO 9660 − CD−ROM filesystem.......................................................................................................3 9. Other filesystems.................................................................................................................................3
    [Show full text]
  • Risc PC X86 Card User Guide Risc PC X86 Card User Guide Copyright © 1995 Acorn Computers Limited
    Risc PC x86 Card User Guide Risc PC x86 Card User Guide Copyright © 1995 Acorn Computers Limited. All rights reserved. Published by Acorn Computers Technical Publications Department. Neither the whole nor any part of the information contained in, nor the product described in, this manual may be adapted or reproduced in any material form except with the prior written approval of Acorn Computers Limited. The product described in this manual and products for use with it are subject to continuous development and improvement. All information of a technical nature and particulars of the product and its use ( including the information and particulars in this manual) are given by Acorn Computers Limited in good faith. However, Acorn Computers Limited cannot accept any liability for any loss or damage arising from the use of any information or particulars in this manual. This product is not intended for use as a critical component in life support devices or any system in which failure could be expected to result in personal injury. Acorn supplies its products through an international dealer network. These outlets are trained in the use and support of Acorn products and are available to help resolve any queries you may have. The Risc PC x86 Cards are designed by Acorn Computers Limited. ACORN is a trademark of Acorn Computers Limited PC-DOS is a trademark of International Business Machines Corporation Windows and the Windows logo are trademarks of Microsoft Corporation All other trademarks are acknowledged. Published by Acorn Computers Limited Part number 1411,003 Issue 1, September 1995 Guarantee (valid in UK only) This equipment is guaranteed by Acorn Computers Limited ("ACORN") against mechanical and electrical defects subject to the conditions set out below.
    [Show full text]
  • Updated Virtualrpc Components for RISC OS 6
    ne of the main things that keeps me using my Risc PC is the versatility of the operating system - mainly due to it’s universal draw file format. For Oinstance I construct the centre pages in Artworks as this now has excellent PDF export facilities. However for proofing the magazine before it gets sent to the printers I like to do a printout to see if everything works properly. Because Artworks now can deal with multiple pages it is very easy to save each page either as an Artworks file or Draw file directly into the magazine’s Ovation Pro file by dragging and dropping. A two second job! Other computer platforms don’t generally have this facility of moving files directly into open application windows. Generally to move a file to another application you have to use the dreaded ‘save as’ filer window - choose a suitable format - navigate to where you need to save the file - save it - go to the other application - open a filer window - navigate to the saved file - open it in the new application. If you need to transfer a different file type you generally have to go through all that palaver again. Two seconds on RISC OS, thirty seconds on OS X or Windows. Draw is a great program with no real equivalent on a PC or Mac. For instance it can be put to good use in music for constructing objects the original program can’t do. I use the Sibelius music setting program on both RISC OS and Windows. The RISC OS still has one or two advantages over the PC version, one of which is it’s ability to export to Draw.
    [Show full text]
  • Computer Architectures an Overview
    Computer Architectures An Overview PDF generated using the open source mwlib toolkit. See http://code.pediapress.com/ for more information. PDF generated at: Sat, 25 Feb 2012 22:35:32 UTC Contents Articles Microarchitecture 1 x86 7 PowerPC 23 IBM POWER 33 MIPS architecture 39 SPARC 57 ARM architecture 65 DEC Alpha 80 AlphaStation 92 AlphaServer 95 Very long instruction word 103 Instruction-level parallelism 107 Explicitly parallel instruction computing 108 References Article Sources and Contributors 111 Image Sources, Licenses and Contributors 113 Article Licenses License 114 Microarchitecture 1 Microarchitecture In computer engineering, microarchitecture (sometimes abbreviated to µarch or uarch), also called computer organization, is the way a given instruction set architecture (ISA) is implemented on a processor. A given ISA may be implemented with different microarchitectures.[1] Implementations might vary due to different goals of a given design or due to shifts in technology.[2] Computer architecture is the combination of microarchitecture and instruction set design. Relation to instruction set architecture The ISA is roughly the same as the programming model of a processor as seen by an assembly language programmer or compiler writer. The ISA includes the execution model, processor registers, address and data formats among other things. The Intel Core microarchitecture microarchitecture includes the constituent parts of the processor and how these interconnect and interoperate to implement the ISA. The microarchitecture of a machine is usually represented as (more or less detailed) diagrams that describe the interconnections of the various microarchitectural elements of the machine, which may be everything from single gates and registers, to complete arithmetic logic units (ALU)s and even larger elements.
    [Show full text]
  • Manual in PDF Format
    This PDF version of the manual is arranged to look like the original A5 booklet. Page 1 of the booklet is on a page by itself (to the right of this note), pages 2 and 3 come !Methods next to each another etc. Page 16 is on a left page by itself. a church bell ringing program by Kate & David Crennell Church bell method ringing demonstration Contents on RISCOS computers. The application !Methods animates a band of from 4 to 16 church bell ringers page with any of a selection of almost 200 standard methods. If you do not ring An introduction to church bell ringing 4 church bells yourself, first read the section: An introduction to methods rung on church bells 6 ‘An Introduction to church bell ringing’. Program running instructions 8 Ringing a Plain Course 10 Program tested on versions of RISCOS 3, 4 and 5 “Calling” a Touch 12 including an A4, 7500FE, Making minor adjustments to the pitch of the ring 12 Kinetic StrongARM RISC PC, Iyonix Format of methods data file 13 and VirtualAcorn* on PCs running Windows. Adding methods 13 2 February 2006 Format of touches data file 13 ‘Diagrams’ 14 Kate and David Crennell, Disc contents 16 ‘Fortran Friends’, PO Box 64, Didcot, Oxon, OX11 0TH. Email: [email protected] Tel: 01235 834357 The software to which this manual relates remains our copyright: You must not alter the program or manual in any way but may distribute them in their entirety to others for non-commercial use. The users of such copies should be asked to send us a minimum donation of £10 towards guild bell restoration.
    [Show full text]
  • Risc PC 486 Card User Guide
    Risc PC 486 Card User Guide Risc PC 486 Card User Guide Copyright © 1994 Acorn Computers Limited. All rights reserved. Published by Acorn Computers Technical Publications Department. Neither the whole nor any part of the information contained in, nor the product described in, this manual may be adapted or reproduced in any material form except with the prior written approval of Acorn Computers Limited. The product described in this manual and products for use with it are subject to continuous development and improvement. All information of a technical nature and particulars of the product and its use (including the information and particulars in this manual) are given by Acorn Computers Limited in good faith. However, Acorn Computers Limited cannot accept any liability for any loss or damage arising from the use of any information or particulars in this manual. This product is not intended for use as a critical component in life support devices or any system in which failure could be expected to result in personal injury. Acorn supplies its products through an international dealer network. These outlets are trained in the use and support of Acorn products and are available to help resolve any queries you may have. The Acorn PC cards are designed by Aleph One Limited on behalf of Acorn Computers Limited. ACORN, ARCHIMEDES and ECONET are trademarks of Acorn Computers Limited MS-DOS and Windows are trademarks of Microsoft Corporation All other trademarks are acknowledged. Published by Acorn Computers Limited Part number 0491,703 Issue 1 October 1994 ii Guarantee (valid in UK only) This equipment is guaranteed by Acorn Computers Limited ("ACORN") against mechanical and electrical defects subject to the conditions set out below.
    [Show full text]
  • Lessons from Discarded Computer Architectures Andrew E
    Lessons from Discarded Computer Architectures Andrew E. Fluck To cite this version: Andrew E. Fluck. Lessons from Discarded Computer Architectures. IFIP WG 9.7 International Conference on History of Computing (HC) / Held as Part of World Computer Congress (WCC), Sep 2010, Brisbane, Australia. pp.198-205, 10.1007/978-3-642-15199-6_20. hal-01054654 HAL Id: hal-01054654 https://hal.inria.fr/hal-01054654 Submitted on 7 Aug 2014 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution| 4.0 International License Lessons from Discarded Computer Architectures Andrew E. Fluck University of Tasmania Locked Bag 1307, Launceston, Tasmania, 7250, AUSTRALIA [email protected] Abstract: The BBC microcomputer was one of several nationally produced which were superseded by the International Business Machines (IBM) Personal Computer (PC). This reflected the results of both an international market competition and rivalry between different US processor manufacturers. Along with the hardware, valuable software and supporting educational ideologies were discarded. As we make choices about technological innovation, to what degree are we selecting potential efficacy or responding to marketing hype? Keywords: BBC microcomputer, IBM Personal Computer, Apple II, computer hardware, operating systems 1 Introduction The BBC microcomputer was an 8-bit machine based on the Motorola 6502 processor.
    [Show full text]
  • ACORN RISC MACHINE Jitendra Marathe ARM Is a Reduced
    SRJIS / BIMONTHLY/JITENDRA MARATHE. (581-585) ACORN RISC MACHINE Jitendra Marathe ARM is a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architecture (ISA) developed by ARM Holdings. It was named the Advanced RISC Machine and, before that, the Acorn RISC Machine. The ARM architecture is the most widely used 32-bit instruction set architecture in numbers produced. Originally conceived by Acorn Computers for use in its personal computers, the first ARM-based products were the co-processor modules for the BBC series of computers. Features and applications: In 2005 about 98% of the more than one billion mobile phones sold each year used at least one ARM processor. As of 2009 ARM processors accounted for approximately 90% of all embedded 32-bit RISC processors and were used extensively in consumer electronics, including personal digital assistants (PDAs), tablets, mobile phones, digital media and music players, hand-held game consoles, calculators and computer peripherals such as hard drives and routers. Licensees: The ARM architecture is licensable. Companies that are current or former ARM licensees include Alcatel-Lucent, Apple Inc., AppliedMicro, Atmel, Broadcom, Cirrus Logic, CSR_plc, Digital Equipment Corporation, Ember, Energy Micro, Freescale, Intel (through DEC), LG, Marvell Technology Group, Microsemi, Microsoft, NEC, Nintendo, Nuvoton, Nvidia, Sony, NXP (formerly Philips Semiconductor), Oki, ON Semiconductor, Psion, Qualcomm, Renesas, Samsung, Sharp, Silicon Labs, STMicroelectronics, Symbios Logic, Texas Instruments, VLSI Technology, Yamaha, Fuzhou Rockchip, and ZiiLABS. In addition to the abstract architecture, ARM offers several microprocessor core designs, including the ARM7, ARM9, ARM11, Cortex- A8, Cortex-A9, and Cortex-A15. Companies often license these designs from ARM to manufacture and integrate into their own system on a chip (SoC) with other components like RAM, GPUs, or radio basebands (for mobile phones).
    [Show full text]