15 Mar
2005
15 Mar
'05
3:15 p.m.
Yes, the 8080/8085/8086 series chips did parity
checking. The PSW had a flag
for odd/even parity. Naturally, the Z80, being a superset of the 8080, also had this
ability. I assume that the later generations of x86 series chips, for backward
compatability,
also had the ability to check for parity.
The TMS9900 series also did parity checking.
Did anyone really use these features much? It sort of sounds like a waste
of gates, since most serial I/O parity is done by the UART.
William Donzelli
aw288 at osfn.org