Reproduction micros

[Adam Sampson]

Lars Brinkhoff <lars at nocrew.org> writes:

> The link you posted above says "Sophie maintains that "inspired by"
> isn't the right choice of words." [...] I'm just genuinely curious
> exactly which features of the 6502 and ARM instruction sets people
> think are so alike?

I've always interpreted the "inspired by" description as being about
*how* the ARM was designed, rather than about the design itself. There's
a story Sophie Wilson's told in several interviews about a visit to
WDC...

>From The Inquirer:
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/feature/1687452/birth-world-beater

| A visit Wilson and her colleague Steve Furber made to the Western
| Design Centre at Phoenix, Arizona, to check out a successor to the
| 6502 has passed into UK computing legend.
|
| The two British engineers, expecting high-tech buildings bristling
| with expert brains, were astonished to find just two developers
| working in a bungalow with "a bunch of college kids" on holiday
| jobs. "We came away thinking if they can do it, so can we."

Later in the same article:

| The instruction set, Wilson said, "came from that strange place inside
| my head where computer design comes from. Most engineers like to
| proceed from A to B to C in a series of logical steps. I'm the rare
| engineer who says the answer is obviously Z and we will get on with
| that while you guys work out how to do all the intermediate steps. It
| makes me a dangerous person to employ in IT but a useful one."

-- 
Adam Sampson <ats at offog.org>                         <http://offog.org/>