these RTL or what? - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

8 Oct 2007

...

Subject: Re: these RTL or what?
   From: woodelf <bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca>
   Date: Mon, 08 Oct 2007 12:11:23 -0600
     To: General Discussion: On-Topic and Off-Topic Posts <cctalk at
classiccmp.org>

Allison wrote:

  RX02 works with PDP-8, WD1793 works with Cmos6120
(PDP-8), VAXen and 
 other long word machines are using floppy and other 8bit interfaces.
 VAX 780 microcode was loaded from floppy. 
I grew up in alas in a PC world.I got to play with a 8 but that
is about all. 
I'd have guessed that. ;)

...

  Most of those systems had already dealt with the
8bit/n-bit issue
 and as devices got larger and space less an issue it became less 
 an issue.  If it were, then PCs would have 32bit wide HDC rather 
 than 16bit. 
I like 16 bits for IDE ... You can cut that down to say 12 bits for
your PDP-8. 9 or 12 bits for the cpu depending on what cpu I build.:) 
True.  But since the 386, PCs are 32bit, for that fact since 1978
VAX was 32bit.. You would have thought a wider IDE or data channels
would have happend. But it hasn't.  

IO devices often lagged the CPUs or were designed for the devices 
convenience or so it seemed.  I feel legacy, (not always PCs) 
played  distinct factor as well.

Allison