News Revealed: Apple Silicon's Debt to the Intel 8080

[Admin]

An investigation into Apple's Rosetta 2 uncovered a barely-used function dating back 50 years.

Revealed: Apple Silicon's Debt to the Intel 8080 : Read more

 

[Axell]

I lol'd hard at the egyptian mural to represent the article... Then sadness hit even harder when I realized I actually used an 8086 processor.

 

[bradhouser]

The 8080 was Intel's second microprocessor, not second chip. Intel was a memory company at first. Their first microprocessor came after a number of memory products.

 

[CerianK]

The 8080 was Intel's second microprocessor, not second chip. Intel was a memory company at first. Their first microprocessor came after a number of memory products.

3rd or 4th microprocessor, I think:
4004 November 15, 1971
8008 April, 1972
4040 1974
8080 April, 1974

 

[Alank%]

The 8080 was Intel's second microprocessor, not second chip. Intel was a memory company at first. Their first microprocessor came after a number of memory products.

Correct about the Intel memory chips, however the 8080 was actually Intel's fourth microprocessor. Their very first microprocessor, and in fact the first microprocessor in the world, was the four-bit Intel 4004. The second was an evolution of the 4004 the 4040, the third was the 8008 and, finally the fourth was the 8080..., and that, along with the January 1975 issue of Popular Elec tronics changed everything.

 

[bit_user]

Wow, that was confusing! I read the whole article waiting to see what was the secret part of the 8080. Then, I read the blog post it referenced, and finally realized the article wasn't talking about secret extensions of the 8080, but rather a secret extension in the Apple Silicon!

The secret extension is a mode that causes the Apple CPU core to compute and store the PF and AF in high-order bits of the NZVC register. The reason this is such a big deal is that ARM doesn't allow its customers to make nonstandard extensions to their implementations. That's how ARM achieves such a high degree of software compatibility between CPUs.

Anyway, the historical asides, sprinkled through the article, really just got in the way more than anything else. Moreover, the 8080 really doesn't need to be referenced.