The PACE was National Semiconductor's first single-chip 16-bit
microprocessor. Its architecture was similar to National's earlier
IMP-16 multichip processor, which in turn was inspired by the Data
General Nova architecture.
Godbout designed and advertised a PACE system, and built a prototype,
but never put it into production. PACE never caught on with hobbyists,
possibly because it was slower than the more common 8-bit processors.
PACE, and the later INS8900 NMOS version, did get used in some embedded
systems.
In May I wrote an assembler and simulator for the PACE, and typed in the
published source code for PACE FIG-Forth. I found and corrected a bug
in the U/ word.
In case anyone actually has a PACE system, I've put the sources online:
http://www.brouhaha.com/~eric/retrocomputing/national/pace/figforth/
I'm not quite ready to publish my assembler and simulator, though if
anyone feels an urgent need for such things, let me know.
Eric