A85: Just thinking.
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A85: Just thinking.
You know something that would be cool? If Texas Instruments came out
with a calc or a handheld comp that used the z380 processor. I mean lets
face it, no matter how much people work on ti calcs, they'll never be as
good as a regular computers because they don't have the processing
ability, they don't have the speed, they don't have the storage
capability, or the bandwidth to handle things like sound or multitasking
or anything that we want it to.
But a z380 calc? That's a different story. 32-bit processing, 8 (16-bit)
registers, 33mHz clock speed, and 16Mb memory addressing! It would
combine the power of a 386 or 486 processor with the z80's pristine
instruction set. I mean there's only so far you can push the z80 and I
think its almost pushed to the limit as it is. I had an old 286 PC that
I kept tweaking and tweaking trying to max out its capability, but one
day I realized that it's like trying to make a Pinto or a Gremlin look
and run like a Ferrari; it wasn't going to happen because there's only
so much a 286 can handle. What we need is a calc/mini-computer with the
power to handle all the stuff we want to do to it. Imagine a calc that
looks like an 85 but with a 640x480 color display, superfast processing,
and a 16 or 32-bit expansion bus that you can plug things into like
sound cards and I/O controller cards to handle HDD's. The neat thing is
that it would be devoid of any type of software, making it a huge
frontier for programmers to explore. We'd finally be able to make the
programs we want to make without worrying about choking the CPU or
running out of memory: multitasking GUI OS's, huge action games like
Doom or Quake, Internet browsers, it would be wide open. And if enough
pressure was put on Texas Instruments, they'd probably make it.
Anyway, I was just thinking. What do you guys think about it?
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