5 ms·
No mention of the StrongARM processor card for the Acorn Risc PC. It probably came too late but was a massive speed upgrade over the supplied ARM6 card https:/
by murkle 6y ago
No mention of the StrongARM processor card for the Acorn Risc PC. It probably came too late but was a massive speed upgrade over the supplied ARM6 card
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StrongARM https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/StrongARM
- gok 6y agoAnd honestly it was probably DEC's implementation that set ARM on its trajectory for world domination.
- klelatti 6y agoAgreed plus Thumb which got ARM into Nokia mobile phones. Dave Jaggar has some interesting comments on the history around DEC, StrongARM and the Austin ARM team. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6sh097Dk5k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6sh097Dk5k
- pdw 6y agoAnd supposedly Thumb mode was designed at the request of Nintendo, for use in the Game Boy Advance. (I think I read this in one of the Acorn oral histories, maddeningly I can't find a source now.)
- gok 6y agoHm that would be rather surprising. GBA was released in 2001; Thumb was introduced in 1994 with ARM7.
- klelatti 6y agoSurprising but true! Dave Jaggar makes it clear in this video that it was to keep code within smaller Nintendo ROM size constraints. Seven year gap between ARM / Nintendo discussions and GBA appearance! https://youtu.be/_6sh097Dk5k?t=1657 https://youtu.be/_6sh097Dk5k?t=1657
- pdw 6y agoHe mentions only Nintendo, I must have been mistaken about the GBA. Given the year, this must have been for the Virtual Boy. Not a surprise that they don't tell the story much. In the end the Virtual Boy shipped with a 32-bit NEC CPU.
- klelatti 6y agoPossibly, but the Virtual Boy was announced in Nov 1994 and demoed at the start of 1995 - so a very short period for development if they were still debating the processor during 1994. Maybe Nintendo were concerned about code size given their experience with VB and that led to the challenge to the ARM team? Plus seems like the GBA was paused for a while in the 1990s too.
- lproven 6y agoI saw that video. He only came in long after the Archimedes era and he doesn't seem to know anything about it. No Archimedes, no ARM. You have to know your history; ask George Santayana. I would mention that that video was _wildly_ contentious over in the RISC OS world. :-D
- klelatti 6y agoI can see why the video would have been contentious - the general impression given was that the IP that ARM (the company) inherited wasn't that great, which does't seem entirely fair. Also RISC OS was a desktop OS and Thumb etc was all about getting into mobile devices and so in effect abandoning that legacy. In fairness though without Thumb ARM would be unlikely to have reached its market position today so credit due I think to all those who contributed to the evolution of the architecture (including the team that developed A64).
- projektfu 6y agoI remember seeing the specs on the Itsy and wondering how it had more MHz than a Pentium Pro. I was developing for the Palm Pilot at the time. (16MHz Motorola 68328)
- lproven 6y agoNo, I didn't mention it at all, because TBH I didn't think it was relevant -- I was mainly discussing the OS and comparing it to other contemporaneous OSes. Why and how do you think it would have fit?