15 Nov
2011
15 Nov
'11
12:04 p.m.
What is the oldest microprocessor still being manufactured? Z80?
Peace... Sridhar
12:16 p.m.
On Tue, Nov 15, 2011 at 3:04 PM, Sridhar Ayengar <ploopster at gmail.com> wrote:
What is the oldest microprocessor still being manufactured? ?Z80?
I've found two release dates for the Z-80, May or July, 1976. I
wasn't as quickly able to find the specific release date for the 6502,
but it was sometime in 1976, IIRC.
What else from that era is still being manufactured?
-ethan
12:33 p.m.
On Tue, 15 Nov 2011, Ethan Dicks wrote:
On Tue, Nov 15, 2011 at 3:04 PM, Sridhar Ayengar
<ploopster at gmail.com> wrote:
ISTM the 1802 is still being made by Intersil.
Alexey
What is the oldest microprocessor still being manufactured? ?Z80?
I've found two release dates for the Z-80, May or July, 1976. I
wasn't as quickly able to find the specific release date for the 6502,
but it was sometime in 1976, IIRC.
What else from that era is still being manufactured? 
12:44 p.m.
-----Original Message-----
From: cctalk-bounces at classiccmp.org [mailto:cctalk-
bounces at classiccmp.org] On Behalf Of Alexey Toptygin
Sent: Tuesday, November 15, 2011 12:34 PM
To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts
Subject: Re: Oldest CPU Chip
On Tue, 15 Nov 2011, Ethan Dicks wrote:
ISTM the 1802 is still being made by Intersil.
According to the Intersil website, you can buy them direct for US$108.10 per thousand.
Now what would I do with a thousand 8-bit microprocessors....? -- Ian
On Tue, Nov 15, 2011 at 3:04 PM, Sridhar Ayengar
<ploopster at gmail.com>
wrote:
What is the oldest microprocessor still being manufactured? ?Z80?
I've found two release dates for the Z-80, May or July, 1976. I
wasn't as quickly able to find the specific release date for the 6502,
but it was sometime in 1976, IIRC.
What else from that era is still being manufactured?
1:15 p.m.
Ethan Dicks wrote:
On Tue, Nov 15, 2011 at 3:44 PM, Ian King<IanK at
vulcan.com> wrote:
I have one that probably is a contender for that title. Two machines
each with 68010 @10MHz.
Peace... Sridhar
According to the Intersil website, you can buy
them direct for US$108.10 per thousand. Now what would I do with a thousand 8-bit
microprocessors....? -- Ian
Build the worlds slowest Beowulf Cluster? 
2:12 p.m.
Ethan Dicks wrote:
Build the worlds slowest Beowulf Cluster?
Sridhar Ayengar wrote:
I have one that probably is a contender for that
title.
Two machines each with 68010 @10MHz.
Not even close.
Possibly Ciarcia's multiprocessor 8751 system for Mandelbrot set
computations, in the October/November/December 1988 Byte magazines. It
was awesomely slow.
In that timeframe I was using a single Motorola DSP56001 to do
Mandelbrot set computations, and it was *much* faster than an array of
8051s. Somewhere I still have a printed listing of the assembly code.
The loop for a single-precision iteration was five instructions. The
double-precision loop was a lot longer. Originally I did this with a
386 PC, but later hooked it up to a Macintosh, and Dave Platt added
plugin support to MandelZot so I could use it without writing an entire
custom Macintosh application.
I see that Tristan did used the DSP56001 with an Amiga host for
Mandelbrot set computations around 1990:
http://lorachnroll.blogspot.com/2010/03/old-hand-made-co-processor-for-my-a…
3:18 p.m.
Eric Smith wrote:
Ethan Dicks wrote:
Yeah, but was it actually *Beowulf*?
Peace... Sridhar
Build the worlds slowest Beowulf Cluster?
Sridhar Ayengar wrote:
I have one that probably is a contender for that
title.
Two machines each with 68010 @10MHz.
Not even close.
Possibly Ciarcia's multiprocessor 8751 system for Mandelbrot set
computations, in the October/November/December 1988 Byte magazines. It
was awesomely slow.
3:44 p.m.
I wrote:
Possibly Ciarcia's multiprocessor 8751 system for
Mandelbrot set
computations, in the October/November/December 1988 Byte magazines. It
was awesomely slow.
Sridhar Ayengar wrote:
Yeah, but was it actually *Beowulf*?
According to Wikipedia:
"There is no particular piece of software that defines a cluster as
a Beowulf."
So I'm going to claim that it is.
3:52 p.m.
On 11/15/2011 06:18 PM, Sridhar Ayengar wrote:
Meaning "Linux + MPI"? No. But it was awfully cool.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
New Kensington, PA
Possibly
Ciarcia's multiprocessor 8751 system for Mandelbrot set
computations, in the October/November/December 1988 Byte magazines. It
was awesomely slow.
Yeah, but was it actually *Beowulf*? 
4:14 p.m.
New subject: plotting Mandelbrot in the late 1980s - Re: Oldest CPU Chip
On 15/11/11 5:12 PM, Eric Smith wrote:
Ethan Dicks wrote:
In that timeframe I fixed some bugs in Levco's Mandelbrot demo for their
Translink Transputer board for Macintosh NuBus, which on two T800's was
handily faster than the host Mac (a IIcx, probably). In fact, a single
T800 was quite a bit faster even for integer work.
I think I still have the code lying around, and the board.
--T
Build the worlds slowest Beowulf Cluster?
Sridhar Ayengar wrote:
I have one that probably is a contender for that
title.
Two machines each with 68010 @10MHz.
Not even close.
Possibly Ciarcia's multiprocessor 8751 system for Mandelbrot set
computations, in the October/November/December 1988 Byte magazines. It
was awesomely slow.
In that timeframe I was using a single Motorola DSP56001 to do
Mandelbrot set computations, and it was *much* faster than an array of
8051s. Somewhere I still have a printed listing of the assembly code.
The loop for a single-precision iteration was five instructions. The
double-precision loop was a lot longer. Originally I did this with a 386
PC, but later hooked it up to a Macintosh, and Dave Platt added plugin
support to MandelZot so I could use it without writing an entire custom
Macintosh application.
I see that Tristan did used the DSP56001 with an Amiga
host for
Mandelbrot set computations around 1990:
http://lorachnroll.blogspot.com/2010/03/old-hand-made-co-processor-for-my-a…
5:13 p.m.
Eric Smith wrote:
Ethan Dicks wrote:
Is that online anywhere? I wouldn't mind a read. A quick google showed a
couple of Byte archives that were no longer functional, and one working one
which only went as recent as 1986.
cheers
Jules
Build the worlds slowest Beowulf Cluster?
Sridhar Ayengar wrote:
I have one that probably is a contender for that
title.
Two machines each with 68010 @10MHz.
Not even close.
Possibly Ciarcia's multiprocessor 8751 system for Mandelbrot set
computations, in the October/November/December 1988 Byte magazines. It
was awesomely slow. 
5:27 p.m.
On 11/15/2011 6:13 PM, Jules Richardson wrote:
Eric Smith wrote:
They may have something here:
http://www.circuitcellar.com/
Ethan Dicks wrote:
Is that online anywhere? I wouldn't mind a read. A quick google showed a
couple of Byte archives that were no longer functional, and one working
one which only went as recent as 1986.
cheers
Jules
Build the worlds slowest Beowulf Cluster?
Sridhar Ayengar wrote:
I have one that probably is a contender for that
title.
Two machines each with 68010 @10MHz.
Not even close.
Possibly Ciarcia's multiprocessor 8751 system for Mandelbrot set
computations, in the October/November/December 1988 Byte magazines. It
was awesomely slow. 
1:21 p.m.
On Nov 15, 2011 4:13 PM, "Ethan Dicks" <ethan.dicks at gmail.com> wrote:
On Tue, Nov 15, 2011 at 3:44 PM, Ian King <IanK at vulcan.com> wrote:
> According to the Intersil website, you can buy them direct for
US$108.10 per
thousand. Now what would I do with a thousand 8-bit
microprocessors....? -- Ian
That's only 11cents per chip.
Sell the rest for a $1 and you still come out way ahead.
Build the worlds slowest Beowulf Cluster?
How slow is it really when its all parallel ;)
=Dan
1:37 p.m.
Ethan Dicks wrote:
On Tue, Nov 15, 2011 at 3:44 PM, Ian King <IanK at
vulcan.com> wrote:
That is oddly appealing.
(this coming from someone who was scrabbling around a few years ago for
'386 PCs to turn into the world's worst raytracing cluster)
cheers
Jules
According to the Intersil website, you can buy
them direct for US$108.10 per thousand. Now what would I do with a thousand 8-bit
microprocessors....? -- Ian
Build the worlds slowest Beowulf Cluster?
2:42 p.m.
On Tue, Nov 15, 2011 at 4:37 PM, Jules Richardson
<jules.richardson99 at gmail.com> wrote:
Ethan Dicks wrote:
I would think a container of Amiga 2000s would be a candidate for that
- they _were_ used for raytracing back in the day, but a 7.18MHz 68K
with no hardware assist isn't going to trace those rays very quickly
(remember how long it took to render The Juggler without an
accelerator?)
-ethan
Build the worlds slowest Beowulf Cluster?
That is oddly appealing.
(this coming from someone who was scrabbling around a few years ago for '386
PCs to turn into the world's worst raytracing cluster) 
3:04 p.m.
On Nov 15, 2011, at 4:37 PM, Jules Richardson wrote:
Ethan Dicks wrote:
Let's be honest, it doesn't sound much worse than Larabee.
On Tue, Nov 15, 2011 at 3:44 PM, Ian King
<IanK at vulcan.com> wrote:
That is oddly appealing.
(this coming from someone who was scrabbling around a few years ago for '386 PCs to
turn into the world's worst raytracing cluster) According to the Intersil website, you can buy
them direct for US$108.10 per thousand. Now what would I do with a thousand 8-bit
microprocessors....? -- Ian
Build the worlds slowest Beowulf Cluster? 
8:57 p.m.
From: ethan.dicks at gmail.com
On Tue, Nov 15, 2011 at 3:44 PM, Ian King <IanK at vulcan.com> wrote:
the 1802 is quite common in street light controllers. I'm sure they need replacing
every now and then.
Dwight
According to the Intersil website, you can buy
them direct for US$108.10 per thousand. Now what would I do with a thousand 8-bit
microprocessors....? -- Ian
Build the worlds slowest Beowulf Cluster?
-ethan
1:04 p.m.
On 15 Nov 2011 at 12:44, Ian King wrote:
According to the Intersil website, you can buy them
direct for
US$108.10 per thousand. Now what would I do with a thousand 8-bit
microprocessors....? -- Ian
Punk jewelry?
Theme carpet for your shop?
Out of this world massively parallel processor?
The 6800 still exists in the form of the Freescale HC11 and HC08
microcontroller line.
And the Western Design Center is still make 6502-ish CPUs.
I suppose that one coudd argue than any x86 CPU is just a massively
enhanced 8008. :)
--Chuck
1:27 p.m.
On Nov 15, 2011, at 3:44 PM, Ian King wrote:
Repair broken military devices that you can then sell back to the DoD as EOL extensions
for $5,000?
- Dave
ISTM the 1802
is still being made by Intersil.
According to the Intersil website, you can buy them direct for US$108.10 per thousand.
Now what would I do with a thousand 8-bit microprocessors....? -- Ian 
1:28 p.m.
On 11/15/2011 3:44 PM, Ian King wrote:
Now what would I do with a thousand 8-bit microprocessors....? -- Ian
Make a quad speed iMac?
"Hey, this stuff's pretty good.....What is it?"
-Socrates 399 B.C.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
"Microsoft's biggest and most dangerous contribution to the software
industry may be the degree to which it has lowered user expectations."
-OS/2 Magazine
1:59 p.m.
Ian King wrote:
According to the Intersil website, you can buy them
direct
for US$108.10 per thousand.
You misinterpreted that. It's $108.10 *each* in quantity 1000.
Now what would I do with a thousand 8-bit
microprocessors....?
I'd suggest SETI at home or Folding at home, if you weren't in any hurry,
except that they don't have open-source clients that could be ported to
the 1802.
2:47 p.m.
On Tue, Nov 15, 2011 at 4:59 PM, Eric Smith <eric at brouhaha.com> wrote:
Even assuming that the software could be magically created with no
effort, ISTR there's an expiry mechanism in the SETI at Home client that
if you request a work unit and don't return it in a few days or weeks,
it's discarded. I could be mistaken about that, but I remember it
Ian King wrote:
While I would probably have phrased that as $108.10 q.1000, I, at
least, did get what you meant. The last time I looked into purchasing
1802s (because of Bob Armstrong's Elf2000), c. 2004, they were around
$70 each. Fortunately I have a few lying about of various
formulations (1802A, 1802B, 1802C, 1802D...) so I'm not in the market
to buy at the moment. I even have more spare CPU chips than assembled
boards (8 different models, at least).
According to the Intersil website, you can buy
them direct
for US$108.10 per thousand.
You misinterpreted that. ?It's $108.10 *each* in quantity 1000. Now what would
I do with a thousand 8-bit microprocessors....?
I'd suggest SETI at home or Folding at home, if you weren't in any hurry, except
that they don't have open-source clients that could be ported to the 1802. from way back that essentially it put a de facto lower
bound on the
amount of CPU you could throw at the problem and have your results
considered.
-ethan
6:59 p.m.
On Tue, 15 Nov 2011, Eric Smith wrote:
Ian King wrote:
If that's true, then how is Lee Hart able to sell the entire 1802
membership card kit for $79?
Alexey
According to the Intersil website, you can buy
them direct
for US$108.10 per thousand.
You misinterpreted that. It's $108.10 *each* in quantity 1000.
7:07 p.m.
On Tue, Nov 15, 2011 at 9:59 PM, Alexey Toptygin <alexeyt at freeshell.org> wrote:
Surplus channels.
I've never paid more than $20 for NOS 1802s, and I've gotten them by
the tube in the past 10 years for as little as $5 each.
Large companies have different buying habits than hobbyist vendors.
-ethan
You
misinterpreted that. ?It's $108.10 *each* in quantity 1000.
If that's true, then how is Lee Hart able to sell the entire 1802 membership
card kit for $79?
7:09 p.m.
On 11/15/2011 09:59 PM, Alexey Toptygin wrote:
If that's true, then how is Lee Hart able to sell the entire 1802
membership card kit for $79?
I bought two tubes of 1802s on eBay about two years ago for
$20/ea...they're not rare.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
New Kensington, PA
According to the Intersil website, you can buy them
direct
for US$108.10 per thousand.
You misinterpreted that. It's $108.10 *each* in quantity 1000.
7:21 p.m.
Ian King wrote:
According to the Intersil website, you can buy them
direct
for US$108.10 per thousand.
I wrote:
You misinterpreted that. It's $108.10 *each* in
quantity 1000.
Alexey Toptygin wrote:
If that's true, then how is Lee Hart able to sell
the
entire 1802 membership card kit for $79?
Simple. He's not buying them direct from Intersil.
1:26 p.m.
On Nov 15, 2011, at 3:16 PM, Ethan Dicks wrote:
On Tue, Nov 15, 2011 at 3:04 PM, Sridhar Ayengar
<ploopster at gmail.com> wrote:
Technically, the 6502 isn't still being manufactured. The 65C02 is, but given that
it's a complete design overhaul with some slightly incompatible variations/bugfixes
from the NMOS 6502 (and a few bonus instructions), would that really count?
I guess modern Z80s are roughly in the same boat, but I've never gotten much into the
Z80 world. I don't think many foundries run NMOS processes anymore, in any case (I
could be totally and completely wrong).
- Dave
What is the oldest microprocessor still being manufactured? Z80?
I've found two release dates for the Z-80, May or July, 1976. I
wasn't as quickly able to find the specific release date for the 6502,
but it was sometime in 1976, IIRC.
2:24 p.m.
On 11/15/2011 04:26 PM, David Riley wrote:
I guess modern Z80s are roughly in the same boat, but
I've never gotten much into the Z80 world. I don't think many foundries run NMOS
processes anymore, in any case (I could be totally and completely wrong).
Well...there are modern implementations of the Z80, with wider
address buses, MMUs, lots of speed (relative to the older ones),
features, etc. Essentially the same thing that happened to the x86.
But then there's the plain old Z80, which, the last time I checked,
was still being produced.
-Dave
--
Dave McGuire
New Kensington, PA
16 Nov
16 Nov
12:12 a.m.
On 11/15/11 5:42 PM, "William Donzelli" <wdonzelli at gmail.com> wrote:
Someone mentioned the 68HC11 chips. Those were EOL a while back and the
remaining ones out there are existing stock. They have a new chip that is
code backwards compatible 99% (there are a few things that the new chip
doesn't have that the old one does) and I think that the new chip is a 3.3v
device as opposed to 5V device. (the site controller and door controller
devices I have been repairing are 68hc11 based and are no longer produced
because the company that was making them was buying their chips from a
supplier in thailand that got flooded out and one of the casualties was a
huge stock of 68hc11 ic's :( )
Technically,
the 6502 isn't still being manufactured.
Technically, many of these older chips may not actually be manufactured
anymore, and are available only because of stockpiles in warehouses.
--
Will
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