Reproducing old machines with newer technology

[Chuck Guzis]

On 07/14/2015 02:53 PM, William Donzelli wrote:
>> Again, you're missing the point.
>
> This was a fairly specific CDC Cyber thing - not a widely adopted idea
> in the industry, as was originally asked for.
>
> The channel controller/director idea, on the other hand, was very
> widely adopted.

That's true--but at the time, CDC's design made a huge amount of sense. 
  The CPU was left to do what it did best--crunch numbers without the 
burden of managing the I/O activity and responding to interrupts.  In 
that sense, the CPU was treated as more of a peripheral device.  In 
fact, you could order a CPU-less system. (6416?)

You can still see the general scheme implemented today on the Parallax 
Probeller MPU, which, some, I'm sure will tell you, is a pretty nifty 
design.

--Chuck