gareth evans  wrote:
> On 22/01/2021 09:33, Joe wrote:
> > On 22 Jan 2021 06:51:03 GMT
> > A. Dumas  wrote:
> >
> >> gareth evans  wrote:
> >>> On 21/01/2021 21:51, A. Dumas wrote:
> >>>> gareth evans  wrote:
> >>>>> ... and it's a great disappointment to me that it's not a 64-bit
> >>>>> processor
> >>>>
> >>>> Name one.
> >>>
> >>> As the Pi4 is a 64 bit processor, one assumed that all future
> >>> developments by that company would be 64 bit.
> >>
> >> That's a general purpose CPU for use in general purpose computers
> >> (like the Pi 4). This new thing is a microcontroller chip for use in
> >> microcontrollers. There are currently no 64-bit microcontrollers on
> >> the market. I can imagine it one day moving that way, maybe for
> >> portable image recognition stuff? For now, it would be a very, very
> >> specialised niche and that's not Raspberry Pi's aim.
> >
> > Indeed. I've yet to find a need for more than eight bits in a
> > microcontroller, along with a maximum of 2KB of RAM. If I need more
> > power, it's a RPi.
> >
>
> It is 50 years ago this year that I cut my teeth on a naked
> PDP11/20 with no OS and only an assembler. Everything I did
> was up to me.
>
Ah, but the normal process would be to enter the boot loader by hand,
then a bigger/better loader from paper tape and then the actual OS.

Or did you actually write naked assembler code to do things direct
with the hardware?

I started at a similar time (early 1970s) on a wierd device called the
PDP-12 (an odd marriage of a PDP-8 and a university developed machine
called a Linc-12).

--
Chris Green
·

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