17 May
1998
17 May
'98
10:41 a.m.
What is strange is the rarity of the Philips machines
I mentioned (the
P800 series). There were at least 10 different models. The small
P850 (maximum memory 2kW) was built from TTL and totally hardwired - no
microcode - the control logic was a state machine. The P855 and P860 had
memory management. And the P851 was an LSI version of the P855 I think. That
one was microcoded.
I can understand why they would be rare in North America. I remember
seeing ads (in 1970s era issues of Electronics - still cursed for throwing
the things away!) for them only a few times. I do not think they were
marketted here much at all.
William Donzelli
william(a)ans.net