Keith wrote:
I'm interested to learn the titles of some
standard reference books on
electronic and microcomputer design from the early 1980's. I've been
reverse engineering many aspects of the Commodore Amiga. While I have
a decent library of Amiga books, I'd like to expand the collection to
include the "de facto standard" reference texts of the day --- to give
me more of an insight into the minds of the designers.
I've read some "history of the amiga" columns, "Life on the
edge",
various interviews and so on.
If you could go back, what books would you find on the bookshelves of
these engineers? If you graduated college or a technical school in
1980, what were the popular reference texts used?
68000 reference books?
6800 reference books?
standard information on bus arbitration, or memory controllers, or
maybe LSI chip layout?
standard OS design practices?
I know I'm all over the place.
I've started playing with FPGA's and while I'm wholly unqualified to
be doing so, I'm enjoying it --- but would like to understand how this
stuff was done prior to the modern age. It's like learning the
command line first, so that when the gui-front end comes, you know
what's happening in the back.
Thanks
Keith
P.S. I'd almost be willing to bet there is one or two books called
"contemporary microcomputer design" or "contemporary electronic
design" both with a copyright date of 1980. I could be wrong. :)
Hmm, my library beside me coughs up the following books:
Harry Garland "Introduction To Microprocessor System Design" 1979
Texas Instruments "Designing with TTL Integrated Circuits" 1971 (a bit
too old perhaps)
Mostek "1978 Memory Databook & Designers Guide" (not CPUs, but VERY
handy for old RAM/ROM)
Ferroxcube "Linear Ferrite Materials & Components" (undated! - 1960s?
50s?) 1st edition - core memory. (am I going a bit too far back here?)
Intel "MCS-80 User's Manual" 1980 (better)
"An Introduction To Microcomputers Volume 2" (& 3) Osborne & Associates,
Inc. (1978) a real bible for CPUs and support devices!
Oh, I guess another 50 or so similar books. (TTL Cookbooks, IC Timer
Cookbook, Semiconductor Handbook 1968,...) I hang on to these so I can
fix the early solid state games...
John :-#)#
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