MCP-1600
A processor made by Western Digital, consisting of at least four separate
integrated circuits, including the control circuitry unit, the
ALU, two or four
ROM chips with
microcode, and timing circuitry.
The ALU chip contained twenty-six 8-bit
registers and an 8-bit
ALU, while the control unit supervised the moving of data, memory access, and other control functions.
The
ROM allowed the chip to function as either an 8- or 16-bit chip, with clever use of the 8-bit
ALU.
Further,
microcode allowed the addition of
floating-point routines (40 + 8 bit format), simplifying programming (and possibly producing a floating-point coprocessor).
Two standard
microcode ROMs were available.
This flexibility was one reason it was also used to implement the
DEC LSI-11 processor as well as the
WD Pascal Microengine.
