AnyCPU :: View topic - PgC7000 asynchronous RISC CPU replaces Transputer and x86

Quote:

Chris Shelton is not well known today, yet the British microcomputer industry would have been a very much poorer place without him.

Never as famous as Sir Clive Sinclair, with whom he worked in the past; Acorn’s Chris Curry, Herman Hauser, Steve Furber and Sophie Wilson; or even Tangerine and Oric’s Paul Johnson. Nonetheless, Shelton played a major role in the evolution of UK microcomputers.

He not only designed what is arguably Britain’s first home-grown home computer, the Nascom-1, but he also devised and built what may be the first truly modular, multi-user personal computer system, the Sig/Net. He was also the mind behind one of the most innovative microprocessors ever developed.

Author:	BigEd [ Thu Aug 22, 2013 7:36 pm ]
Post subject:	PgC7000 asynchronous RISC CPU replaces Transputer and x86
In this article from The Register, we learn about Chris Shelton and his rôle in the Nascom-1 single-board computer - but there's more: After the Nascom-1, Chris worked with Clive Sinclair on a super-cheap PC clone, to be implemented by emulation on a Transputer. That didn't quite work out, as they needed something to handle the graphics, and that something turned out to replace the Transputer: an asynchronous RISC CPU in just 90k transistors, with a small cache and a small ROM to support emulation of the target CPU. The PgC7000 - just 90k transistors, and running at under one Volt. If they'd got commercial traction, that could be ARM now. From the original article: Quote: Chris Shelton is not well known today, yet the British microcomputer industry would have been a very much poorer place without him. Never as famous as Sir Clive Sinclair, with whom he worked in the past; Acorn’s Chris Curry, Herman Hauser, Steve Furber and Sophie Wilson; or even Tangerine and Oric’s Paul Johnson. Nonetheless, Shelton played a major role in the evolution of UK microcomputers. He not only designed what is arguably Britain’s first home-grown home computer, the Nascom-1, but he also devised and built what may be the first truly modular, multi-user personal computer system, the Sig/Net. He was also the mind behind one of the most innovative microprocessors ever developed.

Author:	Tor [ Sat Aug 24, 2013 12:23 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: PgC7000 asynchronous RISC CPU replaces Transputer and x8
Thanks for posting that link, that was a very interesting read. Not only because I'm a Nascom-1 owner.. the PgC7000 concept sounds very interesting. I don't think I had heard about it before, although there are some faint bells ringing. I wonder what would have happened if it had been produced. Unfortunately it sounds like no description of it exists anymore, or it could have been a target for an FPGA test implementation maybe. (Or maybe not, there was that asynchronous core..) -Tor

Author:	MichaelM [ Sat Aug 24, 2013 2:31 pm ]
Post subject:	Re: PgC7000 asynchronous RISC CPU replaces Transputer and x8
Great story. I started reading a few days ago, but got distracted. Seeing Tor's post, reminded me that I'd been interrupted. Thanks for finding and posting the story.

AnyCPU http://anycpu.org/forum/

PgC7000 asynchronous RISC CPU replaces Transputer and x86 http://anycpu.org/forum/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=75	Page 1 of 1

Page 1 of 1	All times are UTC
Powered by phpBB® Forum Software © phpBB Group http://www.phpbb.com/