A Slice of Time!

How I learned computing... it was back in 1980 when I worked in the Quality Control department of Kinetic Systems in Lockport IL. We designed and manufactured CAMAC equipment.

I was charged with the insuring the quality by developing test equipment and procedures. And.., I got to learn all about the AMD AM2901.

We used the device as a modular component of a computer control unit (CCU). By using a bit slicing technique, Am2900 family was able to implement a CCU with data, addresses, and instructions to be any multiple of 4 bits by multiplying the number of ICs. One major problem with this modular technique was it required a larger amount of ICs to implement what could be done on a single CPU IC TODAY.

The Am2901 chip was the arithmetic-logic unit (ALU), and the "core" of the series. It could count using 4 bits and implement binary operations as well as various bit-shifting operations.

In the Soviet Union and later Russia the Am2900 family was manufactured as the 1804 series (with e.g. the Am2901 designated as KR1804VS1 / Russian: КР1804ВС1) which was still in production as of 2016. WOW!

Thanks AMD for teaching me all about the Digital World.