RCA 1802

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Sugarplum
Posts: 93
Joined: 30 Sep 2020, 22:19

RCA 1802

Post by Sugarplum »

I started studying the RCA 1802. I am pretty sure the Gigatron can outrun it, even in vCPU mode. It was a somewhat odd CPU.

It uses 8 clock cycles in a machine cycle, and instructions take 2-3 machine cycles. That means it takes 16-24 clock cycles per instruction. The instruction length is 1-3 bytes. NOP only takes 1 byte but takes 3 machine cycles (ie., 24 clock cycles). I am not sure if that was deliberate to give other devices more time to access the bus or what. It has lines to let you know what the CPU is doing, so that makes it easier to negotiate with other devices on the board. It has 16 16-bit "scratchpad" registers. However, it only has an 8-bit ALU and accumulator. So if you need to copy 2 of the general-purpose "scratchpad" registers, you would need 4 instructions. You'd have to Get one byte, Put it, Get the other byte, and Put it.

The bit arrangement of the opcodes is rather neat. The high nybble is the instruction and the low nybble is the register that is involved. So 16 instruction groups that mostly work on the 16 registers, with a handful of exceptions where that doesn't apply. For instance, you cannot load via register 0 since the 0 is used for the Idle instruction which is much like a Halt until interrupt instruction.

Any of the scratchpad registers can be used as the program counter, and any can be used as the index. One thing that it can do like the Gigatron is advance the index register. There are no Call and Return instructions. Those can be emulated by changing the active program counter. So subroutines would need to know what the previous program counter was.

I've been playing with the notion of making a design that is loosely based on it. I think I'd want to sacrifice half the registers to have another instruction bit to add instructions to make up for its shortcomings. A Call and a Return would be nice. It would be nice if the accumulator was 16-bits, even if the 8-bit ALU is maintained. With at least 2 more instructions, one could transfer registers in 2 instructions rather than 4. Direct register to register moves would be nice, but that would be a challenge since you'd only have 3 bits. You'd likely have a choice of 2 and a choice of 4 of the 8 scratchpad registers. So multiple instructions (maybe 4-6) would be needed here to get full coverage.

Changing the lines might be good too. There are only 8 address lines for the 16-bit addresses. The In and Out instructions are apparently multiplexed onto the data bus.
Flamore
Posts: 6
Joined: 03 Nov 2020, 11:42

Re: RCA 1802

Post by Flamore »

CDP 1802 <3
Pretty sure that the newer ones (produced after 2008) use about 1-3 clock cycles
alastair
Posts: 68
Joined: 10 Oct 2019, 14:28

Re: RCA 1802

Post by alastair »

Sugarplum wrote: 12 Nov 2020, 13:20 I started studying the RCA 1802. I am pretty sure the Gigatron can outrun it, even in vCPU mode. It was a somewhat odd CPU.
I worked on a v1802 implementation for a similar project, but switched to a v8080 on Marcel's recommendation :lol: The 1802 is a good fit for a virtual CPU since the overhead of managing the 16 registers is the same as the register constrained 6502. You can manage all those extra registers in the zero page with no additional slow down. A Gigatron vCPU version wouldn't out run the original though.

Marcel posted some performance numbers on the v6502 and provided an insight into the machine cycle speed:
marcelk wrote: 17 Jun 2019, 11:19 This simple benchmark suggests it does two 6502 instructions on average for each black VGA scanline. At the fastest video mode, this will be the equivalent of 125,000 cycles per second, or 8 times slower than the original NMOS chip at 1 MHz. Not bad for half the transistors that are in a true 6502.
The CDP 1802 was typically clocked around 2MHz, so 250,000 machine cycles per second with 8 clock cycles per machine cycle. Marcel's post suggests a Gigatron vCPU would run around 50% as fast, which is still impressive for an emulation.
monsonite
Posts: 101
Joined: 17 May 2018, 07:17

Re: RCA 1802

Post by monsonite »

Of all the classic 8-bit microprocessors from the mid-1970s, the RCA CDP1802 has to be one of the most intriguing.

It began life over 50 years ago, in 1970-71 as a TTL "hobby computer" built in spare time by RCA Engineer Joseph Weisbecker.

The TTL processor used approximately 100 TTL ICs including an ALU made from 2x74181 ALU and a register file made from 4, 7489 RAMs.

Memory was just 1k bytes consisting of 32, 256x1bit RAM chips that had just become available in 1970.

The project was fully documented and detailed hand-drawn schematics are available online here :

http://www.cosmacelf.com/publications/b ... l-orig.pdf

Weisbecker eventually managed to persuade the RCA management to create the instruction set and architecture of his machine using the new CMOS integrated circuit process. The result was the CDP1801 and later the CDP1802 which appeared in 1976.

The 1802 was also manufactured in a Silicon on Saphire (SOS) radiation hardened version, that was used for space and aeronautic applications - including the 1989 space probe "Galileo"

From the outset, Weisbecker's design incorporated some novel features, not present in other contemporary cpus. Some of these arose from the availability of certain TTL and memory components, and others were a result of Weisbecker's desire to make the cpu easier to use, with less support hardware.

The cpu features a register bank of sixteen, 16-bit registers. These may be used for general purpose storage either as 8 or 16-bits, but any one may be used as a Program Counter. Program flow can be modified by switching from one PC register to another. The registers may be incremented or decremented using a 16-bit up/down counter, 4 x 74193. The availability of small TTL RAMs such as the 7489, 16x 4-bit RAM, directly led to the incorporation of this register file.

Another feature included by Weisbecker, was a DMA mode which allowed program data to be transfered (or toggled using switches), directly into RAM. This feature made it possible to make a microcomputer system that required no program or boot ROM.

Weisbecker provided a minimum of user I/O, consisting of four flag inputs and a single flipflop output. With these it was possible to direct program flow based on the state of the inputs, and thus generate a bit-banged serial interface directly on the cpu, thus removing the need for a separate UART device.

These features combined to make a cpu that was easy to use, for the day, and required minimum interface hardware. The CMOS CDP1802 would work over a wide range of supply voltages 3V-12V, and because it was based on static CMOS storage, there was no minimum clock frequency, so the clock could be stopped or used to implement single stepping.

Weisbecker's original TTL design used an ALU based on a pair of 4-bit 74181 ALU chips. However, when it came to implementing in CMOS, it was decided to use a bit-serial ALU, presumably to simplify the logic and reduce gate count. The bit serial ALU would require at least 8 clock cycles to complete an 8-bit operatiom. This slows down cpu execution considerably compared to Weisbecker's TTL prototype.

I recently came across a set of photo-micrographs and some reverse engineering notes and schematics of the 1802 internal logic.

The original page is no longer available, but fortunately it has been captured and preserved by the Wayback Machine.

I hope there is something of interest here for 1802 and Gigatron TTL enthusiasts.

https://web.archive.org/web/20160328172 ... =RCA_1802E
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