The Evolution of the Microprocessor
The Evolution of the MicroprocessorOnly once in a lifetime will a new invention come about to touch every aspect
of our lives. Such a device that changes the way we work, live, and play is a special
one, indeed. The Microprocessor has been around since 1971 years, but in the last few
years it has changed the American calculators to video games and computers (Givone
1). Many microprocessors have been manufactured for all sorts of products; some
have succeeded and some have not. This paper will discuss the evolution and history
of the most prominent 16 and 32 bit microprocessors in the microcomputer and how
they are similar to and different from each other.
Because microprocessors are a subject that most people cannot relate to and do
not know much about, this paragraph will introduce some of the terms that will be in-
volved in the subsequent paragraphs. Throughout the paper the 16-bit and 32-bit mi-
croprocessors are compared and contrasted. The number 16 in the 16-bit microproces-
sor refers how many registers there are or how much storage is available for the mi-
croprocessor (Aumiaux, 3). The microprocessor has a memory address such as A16,
and at this address the specific commands to the microprocessor are stored in the
memory of the computer (Aumiaux, 3). So with the 16-bit microprocessor there are
576 places to store data. With the 32-bit microprocessor there are twice as many
places to store data making the microprocessor faster.
Another common term which is mentioned frequently in the paper is the oscil-
lator or the time at which the processors “clock” ticks. The oscillator is the pace
maker for the microprocessor which tells what frequency the microprocessor can proc-
ess information, this value is measured in Mega-hertz or MHz. A nanosecond is a
measurement of time in a processor, or a billionth of a second. This is used to measure
the time it takes for the computer to execute an instructions, other wise knows as a cy-
cle.
There are many different types of companies of which all have their own family
of processors. Since the individual processors in the families were developed over a
fairly long period of time, it is hard to distinguish which processors were introduced in
order. This paper will mention the families of processors in no particular order. The
first microprocessor that will be discussed is the family of microprocessors called the
9900 series manufactured by Texas Instruments during the mid-70s and was developed
from the architecture of the 900 minicomputer series (Titus, 178). There were five dif-
ferent actual microprocessors that were designed in this family, they were the
TMS9900, TMS9980A, TMS9981, TMS9985, and the TMS9940. The TMS9900 was
the first of these microprocessors so the next four of the microprocessors where simply
variations of the TMS9900 (Titus, 178)....
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