|
National Semiconductor PACE
National Semiconductor's IPC-16A PACE, short for "Processing and Control Element", was the first commercial single-chip 16-bit microprocessor, announced in late 1974. It was a single-chip implementation of their early 1973 five-chip IMP-16 architecture, which in turn had been inspired by the Data General Nova minicomputer. To the basic IMP-16, PACE added a new operational mode, "byte mode", which was useful for working with 8-bit data like ASCII text. Implemented in PMOS logic, pMOS, as was common for the era, PACE required three supply voltages and an external clock with enough signal to drive the internal logic. This was normally supplied by the STE chip. Most PACE systems also required the BTE chip to convert the higher internal voltage signals to transistor-transistor logic, TTL levels used by the rest of the system. Its multiplexed address and data pins also required additional logic. Although National Semiconductor had second source agreements with Signetics and Rockwell Se ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
NS PACE Die
NS as an abbreviation can mean: Arts and entertainment Gaming * ''Natural Selection'' (video game), a mod for the game ''Half-Life'' * '' NetStorm: Islands At War'', a real-time strategy game published in 1997 by Activision * Nintendo Switch, a hybrid video game console and handheld. * '' NationStates'', a web-based simulation game Literature * '' New Spring'' (known to fans as "NS"), a 1999 anthology edited by Robert Silverberg and derivative 2004 novella by Robert Jordan * NS-series robots from the book ''I, Robot'' Companies * National Semiconductor (also known as "Natsemi"), an American integrated circuit design and manufacturing company * Nederlandse Spoorwegen, the main public transport railway company in the Netherlands * Norfolk Southern Railway, a major Class I railroad in the United States, owned by the Norfolk Southern Corporation * Norfolk Southern Railway (1942–1982), the final name of a railroad running in Virginia and North Carolina before its acquisition by th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Power Supply
A power supply is an electrical device that supplies electric power to an electrical load. The main purpose of a power supply is to convert electric current from a source to the correct voltage, electric current, current, and frequency to power the load. As a result, power supplies are sometimes referred to as electric power converters. Some power supplies are separate standalone pieces of equipment, while others are built into the load appliances that they power. Examples of the latter include power supplies found in desktop computers and consumer electronics devices. Other functions that power supplies may perform include limiting the current drawn by the load to safe levels, shutting off the current in the event of an electrical fault, power conditioning to prevent electronic noise or voltage surges on the input from reaching the load, power-factor correction, and storing energy so it can continue to power the load in the event of a temporary interruption in the source power ( ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Cache (computing)
In computing, a cache ( ) is a hardware or software component that stores data so that future requests for that data can be served faster; the data stored in a cache might be the result of an earlier computation or a copy of data stored elsewhere. A cache hit occurs when the requested data can be found in a cache, while a cache miss occurs when it cannot. Cache hits are served by reading data from the cache, which is faster than recomputing a result or reading from a slower data store; thus, the more requests that can be served from the cache, the faster the system performs. To be cost-effective, caches must be relatively small. Nevertheless, caches are effective in many areas of computing because typical Application software, computer applications access data with a high degree of locality of reference. Such access patterns exhibit temporal locality, where data is requested that has been recently requested, and spatial locality, where data is requested that is stored near dat ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Interrupt Handler
In computer systems programming, an interrupt handler, also known as an interrupt service routine (ISR), is a special block of code associated with a specific interrupt condition. Interrupt handlers are initiated by hardware interrupts, software interrupt instructions, or software exception handling, exceptions, and are used for implementing device drivers or transitions between protected modes of operation, such as system calls. The traditional form of interrupt handler is the hardware interrupt handler. Hardware interrupts arise from electrical conditions or low-level protocols implemented in digital logic, are usually dispatched via a hard-coded table of interrupt vectors, asynchronously to the normal execution stream (as interrupt masking levels permit), often using a separate stack, and automatically entering into a different execution context (privilege level) for the duration of the interrupt handler's execution. In general, hardware interrupts and their handlers are used ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Interrupt
In digital computers, an interrupt (sometimes referred to as a trap) is a request for the processor to ''interrupt'' currently executing code (when permitted), so that the event can be processed in a timely manner. If the request is accepted, the processor will suspend its current activities, save its state, and execute a function called an '' interrupt handler'' (or an ''interrupt service routine'', ISR) to deal with the event. This interruption is often temporary, allowing the software to resume normal activities after the interrupt handler finishes, although the interrupt could instead indicate a fatal error. Interrupts are commonly used by hardware devices to indicate electronic or physical state changes that require time-sensitive attention. Interrupts are also commonly used to implement computer multitasking and system calls, especially in real-time computing. Systems that use interrupts in these ways are said to be interrupt-driven. History Hardware interrupts wer ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Subroutine Call
In computer programming, a function (also procedure, method, subroutine, routine, or subprogram) is a callable unit of software logic that has a well-defined interface and behavior and can be invoked multiple times. Callable units provide a powerful programming tool. The primary purpose is to allow for the decomposition of a large and/or complicated problem into chunks that have relatively low cognitive load and to assign the chunks meaningful names (unless they are anonymous). Judicious application can reduce the cost of developing and maintaining software, while increasing its quality and reliability. Callable units are present at multiple levels of abstraction in the programming environment. For example, a programmer may write a function in source code that is compiled to machine code that implements similar semantics. There is a callable unit in the source code and an associated one in the machine code, but they are different kinds of callable units with different implica ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Stack (abstract Data Type)
In computer science, a stack is an abstract data type that serves as a collection (abstract data type), collection of elements with two main operations: * Push, which adds an element to the collection, and * Pop, which removes the most recently added element. Additionally, a peek (data type operation), peek operation can, without modifying the stack, return the value of the last element added. The name ''stack'' is an analogy to a set of physical items stacked one atop another, such as a stack of plates. The order in which an element added to or removed from a stack is described as last in, first out, referred to by the acronym LIFO. As with a stack of physical objects, this structure makes it easy to take an item off the top of the stack, but accessing a Data, datum deeper in the stack may require removing multiple other items first. Considered a sequential collection, a stack has one end which is the only position at which the push and pop operations may occur, the ''top'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Index Register
An index register in a computer's central processing unit, CPU is a processor register (or an assigned memory location) used for pointing to operand addresses during the run of a program. It is useful for stepping through String (computer science), strings and Array data structure, arrays. It can also be used for holding loop iterations and counters. In some Instruction set architecture, architectures it is used for read/writing blocks of memory. Depending on the architecture it may be a dedicated index register or a general-purpose register. Some instruction sets allow more than one index register to be used; in that case additional instruction fields may specify which index registers to use. Generally, the contents of an index register is added to (in some cases subtracted from) an ''immediate'' address (that can be part of the instruction itself or held in another register) to form the "effective" address of the actual data (operand). Special instructions are typically provided ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Accumulator (computing)
In a computer's central processing unit (CPU), the accumulator is a register in which intermediate arithmetic logic unit results are stored. Without a register like an accumulator, it would be necessary to write the result of each calculation (addition, multiplication, shift, etc.) to cache or main memory, perhaps only to be read right back again for use in the next operation. Accessing memory is slower than accessing a register like an accumulator because the technology used for the large main memory is slower (but cheaper) than that used for a register. Early electronic computer systems were often split into two groups, those with accumulators and those without. Modern computer systems often have multiple general-purpose registers that can operate as accumulators, and the term is no longer as common as it once was. However, to simplify their design, a number of special-purpose processors still use a single accumulator. Basic concept Mathematical operations often take ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Processor Register
A processor register is a quickly accessible location available to a computer's processor. Registers usually consist of a small amount of fast storage, although some registers have specific hardware functions, and may be read-only or write-only. In computer architecture, registers are typically addressed by mechanisms other than main memory, but may in some cases be assigned a memory address e.g. DEC PDP-10, ICT 1900. Almost all computers, whether load/store architecture or not, load items of data from a larger memory into registers where they are used for arithmetic operations, bitwise operations, and other operations, and are manipulated or tested by machine instructions. Manipulated items are then often stored back to main memory, either by the same instruction or by a subsequent one. Modern processors use either static or dynamic random-access memory (RAM) as main memory, with the latter usually accessed via one or more cache levels. Processor registers are normal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Overflow Flag
In computer processors, the overflow flag (sometimes called the V flag) is usually a single bit in a system status register used to indicate when an arithmetic overflow has occurred in an operation, indicating that the signed two's-complement result would not fit in the number of bits used for the result. Some architectures may be configured to automatically generate an exception on an operation resulting in overflow. An example, suppose we add 127 and 127 using 8-bit registers. 127+127 is 254, but using 8-bit arithmetic the result would be 1111 1110 binary, which is the two's complement encoding of −2, a negative number. A negative sum of positive operands (or vice versa) is an overflow. The overflow flag would then be set so the program can be aware of the problem and mitigate this or signal an error. The overflow flag is thus set when the most significant bit (here considered the sign bit) is changed by adding two numbers with the same sign (or subtracting two numbers with ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Carry Flag
In computer processors, the carry flag (usually indicated as the C flag) is a single bit in a system status register A status register, flag register, or condition code register (CCR) is a collection of status Flag (computing), flag bits for a Central processing unit, processor. Examples of such registers include FLAGS register (computing), FLAGS register in the .../flag register used to indicate when an arithmetic carry (arithmetic), carry or borrow has been generated out of the most significant bit, most significant arithmetic logic unit (ALU) bit position. The carry flag enables numbers larger than a single ALU width to be added/subtracted by carrying (adding) a binary digit from a partial addition/subtraction to the least significant bit position of a more significant word. This is typically programmed by the user of the processor on the assembly or machine code level, but can also happen internally in certain processors, via digital logic or microcode, where some processors ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
