Quote:
Originally Posted by mbpark
Chips were slow back then. High-level languages just added to the complexity. ASM and ML was the way to go.
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I was told that the CPU was sold without even an ASM development language. Never could confirm that. Never got to use one.
However it was the first computer chip used in communication satellites where I worked. Its function was to maintain the spacecraft only if communication had been lost for a given time period. All commercial satellites back then typically had no intelligence and would be quickly lost if not in constant control from the ground. Satellites once were kept as dumb as possible for reliability purposes meaning that processor was a breakthrough.
By "4 and 8 element CMOS chips around '68", do you mean 4 bit and 8 bit versions? That confirms what I had originally learned. Those processors were available in '68. Others insisted they were not available until about 1972.
I think Intel finally used CMOS around mid 1980s - to put perspective on how innovative some parts of RCA still were back then.