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Context: Sophie was one of the main architects of the original ARM processor Fairbairn: So was there sort of a major insight or breakthrough or whatever in do
by codeulike 6y ago
Context: Sophie was one of the main architects of the original ARM processor
Fairbairn: So was there sort of a major insight or breakthrough or whatever in doing the processor, or was it just sort of you read the papers, you sort of absorbed things and sort of went through the process? Were there any sort of major aha moments, or points that--
Wilson: There was nothing aha about it. It was just, "You can do this stuff. You just get on and do it." As I say, it was more the reverse. We expected to find a roadblock. We expected to find why National Semiconductor employed all those people in the building in Israel and why they found it so difficult. And we just never did. We also-- we thought it was going to be much harder than it really turned out to be, so we put a lot of effort up front into verification and modeling.
- dcminter 6y agoI particularly enjoyed this anecdote (talking about the prototype 6502 based BBC Computer, not the ARM here): Wilson: ...Hermann determined that if there was no logical reason why it didn't work, then it must be the fault of the in-circuit emulator, and that what they should do is take the in-circuit emulator out, put a native processor in it, and surely it would work then, because there was no logical reason it shouldn't. And annoyingly, he was completely right. It did work.
- bencollier49 6y agoThere's a sequence in the BBC drama "Micro Men" which appears to dramatise this, albeit with an external clock wire as the culprit. Worth watching, it's brilliant.
- dcminter 6y agoThanks, it's been on my to-watch list for a while. Maybe it's time to bump it up the queue a bit :)
- pja 6y agoIt’s quite fun & Alexander Armstrong has great fun hamming it up a little as Sinclair.
- dcminter 6y agoThe ZX81 and ZX Spectrum were a big part of my childhood, so I had a big case of Clive-worship as a kid. Watching a clip from this I now feel slightly attacked :) but I'm settling down with a very British cup of tea to watch it tonight. Thanks for the recommendation.
- bencollier49 6y agoI get the impression that the Acorn guys had more of a hand in the consultation process for the film!
- dcminter 6y agoI watched it this evening (stopped watching the other night as it was so good I wanted to watch the whole thing with my wife) and it was very entertaining. Armstrong's portrayal of Sinclair seemed rather cruel, but then I don't know how accurate it might have been.
- dcminter 6y agoAlso here's the companion piece with her colleague from the ARM project Steve Furber: https://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/access/text/2012/05/102746196-05-01-acc.pdf https://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/access/text/20...
- ncmncm 6y agoSophie was THE main architect of the original ARM processor. She created the entire instruction set de novo and wrote the first code for it, including an OS.