14 Jun
2005
14 Jun
'05
6:29 p.m.
--- William Donzelli <aw288 at osfn.org> wrote:
Is there a good reason why DEC did not use the PDP-8
architecture in the
PDP-10, for proper channel controllers? Cheap,
versatile, sixbit, and when
the KA10 came out, already designed. I would have
thought it to be an
obvious "drop-in" solution.
DEC believed that DMA ("data break") was a more
cost-effective solution than IBM-style intelligent
channels, going all the way back to the PDP-1 -- at
least that is the impression that I got from the
retrospective papers in "Computer Engineering: A DEC
View of Hardware Systems Design".
--Bill