4 ms·
That's too generous. They were primarily designed for what was easy to implement and what _could_ be handled in assembly. Also, 8080 was an evolution of the 40
by FullyFunctional 4y ago
That's too generous. They were primarily designed for what was easy to implement and what _could_ be handled in assembly. Also, 8080 was an evolution of the 4040 (and that owed much to the 4004). Z80 had to be compatible with the 8080... I know less of 6502 but most of them were designed about what could be done, not what would be easy to program.
- cmrdporcupine 4y agoI actually only recently learned that the 8008/8080 was in fact not based on the 4004/4040 instruction set. They used the same numbering system, but the ISA has little to nothing in common with it and in fact the 8008 project was in started before the 4004: https://sites.google.com/site/microprocessorintel4004/8008-8080-q-a https://sites.google.com/site/microprocessorintel4004/8008-8...
- FullyFunctional 4y agoThanks I might misremember. Regradless, 8080 is still awful and they could have sone better with more foresight (which is easy to say so many decades later).