A micro controlled peripheral processor

摘要

This paper discusses the design and construction of a micro controlled mini-computer used as peripheral processor unit for the PDP-11/20 in the Electrical and Computer Engineering Laboratory at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. The instruction set for this computer is determined by the micro code in a read only memory (ROM) and is therefore flexible: Changing the ROM results in a different set of machine instructions. The instruction set currently implemented while general purpose in nature, has been chosen so that the machine can function as a Graphics Processor Unit (GPU). The GPU can run concurrently with the PDP-11 and process display files in the PDP-11's virtual memory space of 64K1,2.