Comment by FarmerPotato
2 days ago
I have a few ideas but I think they were set on using their own chip.
There was a memo asking if TI should support those other CPUs in their AMPL prototyping system (990 based tools and in-circuit emulator). That investment was rejected.
Anecdotally, Don Bynum was unhappy with slow progress on defining the Home Computer, and hacked together a Z80 based machine. The engineers redoubled their efforts... supposedly...
There's politics between the Calculator division (all consumer products), Semiconductor, and Data Systems Group.
Still, TI had a TMS8080 (and later their own 486).
I'll work on this idea, thanks...
---- As a child, I knocked some books off a garage shelf once and was plonked on the head with copies of The 8080 Bugbook. What the heck was a Bugbook? Or an 8080?
Some years later, a 9995 data sheet fell on my head and I thought how hard can it be to wire up a computer?
> TI had a TMS8080 (and later their own 486)
Well, technically correct :) It was Cyrix made in TI fab to skirt Intel patents. Same deal with ones made in IBM foundry
Cyrix Corp. v. Intel Corp., 879 F. Supp. 672 (E.D. Tex. 1995) https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/district-courts/FSupp/8...
"Section 1.23 of the IBM Agreement states that IBM Licensed Products "shall mean IHS Products ..." The only logical conclusion is that the parties meant those IHS Products specifically identified in Section 1.2 of the Agreement. Section 1.2 does not limit the products to IBM designed products."
"Therefore, IBM has the right to act as a foundry and to make, use, lease, sell and otherwise transfer the microprocessors in question to Cyrix free of any claims of patent infringement."
Aha! I didn't know the Cyrix story. Just seeing TMS8080 in many places.