On Mon, 16 Apr 2018 22:36:44 +0000 (UTC)
Martin Gregorie  wrote:

> On Mon, 16 Apr 2018 21:40:21 +0100, Ahem A Rivet's Shot wrote:
>
> >  A traditional set of blinkenlights is impossible, the bus lines
> > aren't exposed where you could attach lights (and they switch a bit too
> > fast).
> >
> Disagree: at least one microcomputer (the IMSAI 8080, as seen in the "War
> Games" movie) had them way back in the mid-70s - and that was based on an
> Intel 8080, so it must have been possible to write a firmware monitor to

 Yes that processor had the address and data bus exposed on wires
and ran at about 2MHz.

> emulate the effect of the handswitches and lamps on a PDP-8. However, the
> 8080 was an 8-bit chip with 8 nregisters and 16 bit addressing, so at

 Yep but the registers weren't on disply only the address and data
busses.

> least the number of switches and lights was manageable.
>
> But do it on a 64 bit chip with 16 32 bit registers and a 32 bit address
> space? Some how I don't think so.

 Especially since the address and data busses are not exposed on pins
where you can connect to them but buried deep inside the SOC.

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