From: utzoo!decvax!duke!mcnc!rlgvax!guy
Newsgroups: net.micro
Title: Re: What is a 16032?
Article-I.D.: rlgvax.1083
Posted: Wed Feb 23 05:54:16 1983
Received: Thu Feb 24 08:16:25 1983


The National Semiconductor 16032 is a 16/32 bit micro (like the 68000).
It currently features a true demand-paged memory management unit (unlike that
excuse for an MMU that Motorola provides).  The machine is very VAX-like,
except that the MMU has reference bits.  It has what looks to be the nicest
instruction set of the 16-bitters.  There currently exist two ports of 4.1BSD
to it, one by Human Computing Resources and one by NS and some other people.
I don't know the available clock speeds offhand (4, 6, 8/10 MhZ I think), and
I don't know whether production chips are ready yet (I suspect not).  They
are also working on an IEEE standard FPP (which will plug into the 16032,
unlike the Motorola FPP which requires the 68020).

It's a very nice chip in principle (architecturally, I think it is the best
of all the 16-bit and 16/32-bit micros); however, it may be too little, too
late, and it may never overtake the 68000.  On the other hand, it does have
a real demand-paged MMU...

					Guy Harris
					RLG Corporation
					...!decvax!mcnc!rlgvax!guy