Thread

Unearthing my 1996 windowed OS in machine code for Am29000 homebrew computer

132 points · 32 comments · nanochess

rob74 · 1786028222 · focus · HN ↗
> The AMD Am29000 processor came out in 1987, also announced as the world's fastest processor (do you see a meme here?) and it could process one instruction every cycle, so indeed it was fast.
The AMD 29k - the fastest CPU you never heard of? No, seriously, I am quite interested in computer hardware, and Computer Architecture by Patterson/Hennessy was required reading during my studies, but I can't say I ever heard of this CPU architecture, which is "based on the seminal Berkeley RISC" (according to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMD_Am29000" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMD_Am29000). And it seems to have been quite widely used, but not in an actual computer (except for this one)...
1. AnotherGoodName · 1786028856 · focus · HN ↗
  You might have heard of the x86 cpu the AMD K5 that competed against the Pentium?
  Well that was basically an am29000 but with an x86 instruction decoder front end. The architecture was that good it was competitive 10years later.
  Think of the am29000 as an incredibly influential research project that flowed into all of AMDs future CPUs in some way or another.
  1. taolson · 1786034094 · focus · HN ↗
    > Well that was basically an am29000 but with an x86 instruction decoder front end.
    The K5 was based upon a 29K-family design, but it was actually an un-released superscalar project code-named "Jaguar", rather than just a 29K with an x86 decoder.

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