VAX: offshoot of a sturdy family tree
Article Abstract:
The DEC VAX is one of the computer industry's longest-lived products. The VAX family was introduced in 1978 and spans a wider performance range than any other, from the 725 to the 8978, which handles 50 million instructions-per-second (MIPs). The goal of the VAX planning team was to design a single architecture for a variety of computing needs and hardware speeds. Designers of the first VAX, the 780, relied on off-the-shelf design tools, and utilized a breadboard prototype to prove the architecture and develop software. The VAX architecture is implemented in more than a dozen versions.
Publication Name: IEEE Spectrum
Subject: Engineering and manufacturing industries
ISSN: 0018-9235
Year: 1987
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Phone chip: shared circuits save space
Article Abstract:
AT&T's model 1600 Featurephone uses a chip that contains all the circuitry for ringing, dialing, and power conditioning. The number of gates in the chip was reduced by combining circuits and sharing the power supply. Only one other chip is used for stored number functions, an off-the-shelf 4-bit microprocessor. The new chip is bipolar and easy to connect to telephone lines.
Publication Name: IEEE Spectrum
Subject: Engineering and manufacturing industries
ISSN: 0018-9235
Year: 1987
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