Probably the strangest chip that you'll see today: the Intel 2920, a digital signal processor (DSP) from 1979. It was the "first microprocessor capable of translating analog signals into digital data in real time." Chips are usually 16-bit or 32-bit, but this was a 25-bit processor. It didn't have any jump instructions, instead running code in a loop from the 192-word EPROM. Each instruction combined an ALU operation, a shift, and an analog I/O operation. 1/7
Why is the die photo distorted at the edges? Because I took the photo through the chip's round quartz window. In the olden days before flash, you could store code in an EPROM, memory that could be erased by exposing it to strong ultraviolet light. The quartz window lets the light in. 2/7
@vk2bea@mastodon.radio@kenshirriff "And you try and tell the young people of today that ... they won't believe you."