Re: Debian ARM success story: Debian desktop on a TS-7300
+++ James [06-07-14 14:20 -0400]:
> Bill Gatliff wrote:
> > ARM is exclusively a 32-bit architecture now, and was a 26/32-bit one
> > before that. It doesn't "scale down to 8-bit uP" chips at all. Just
> > doesn't. But in some instances it does indeed hold its own price-wise
> > with competing 8-bit chips. See Philip's line of ARM7 stuff.
>
> You could not be more wrong. Lots of microprocessors (8 and 16 bit) use
> arm cores.
...
> Arm has it's roots in 8 bit cores, but pushes the 32 bit cores today.
> You can licenses
> 8 bit processor technology form ARM LTD, or you could in the past......
This is just drivel. The very first arm CPU (the ARM2) was a 26/32-bit CPU.
This was before ARM existed as a separate company: it was part of the
now-defunct Acorn Computers (who's just-about to be knocked-down old HQ is
about 400m down the road from me).
The only sense in which 'Arm has its roots in 8 bit cores' is that Acorn
designed and built the BBC micro based on the 6502 before they invented the
ARM architecture and made the Archimedes machines.
As Bill said, thumb lets you use a 16-bit bus and memory on a 32-bit CPU,
but all the registers are still 32-bit inside.
I don't know about the rest of your long opinion piece, but if this bit of
info is anything to go by, then it is all highly suspect.
Wookey
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