20 Dec
2023
20 Dec
'23
7:31 p.m.
From: Derek Fawcus
How early does that have to be? MP/M-1.0 (1979 spec)
mentions this, as
"Resident System Processes" ... It was a banked switching, multiuser,
multitasking system for a Z80/8080.
Anything with a microprocessor is, by definition, late! :-)
I'm impressed, in retrospect, with how quickly the world went from proceesors
built with transistors, through proceesors built out discrete ICs, to
microprocessors. To give an example; the first DEC machine with an IC
processor was the -11/20, in 1970 (the KI10 was 1972); starting with the
LSI-11, in 1975, DEC started using microprocessors; the last PDP-11 with a
CPU made out of of discrete ICs was the -11/44, in 1979. All -11's produced
after that used microprocessors.
So just 10 years... Wow.
Noel