[Gllug] Re: Dual core AMDs

[Robert Newson]

Adrian McMenamin wrote:

...
> To be honest, although I started all this Z80 v 6502 stuff, I don't
> believe there is any serious evidence that one was faster than the other
> across the range of real world applications.

Wish you hadn't...you've now sparked off something in me that wants to 
analyse lots of Z80 & 6502 code to see which instructions are most used and 
the timing effects of them.

In terms of speed, I think it all depended upon the programmers; and, 
possibly more importantly, the hardware designers.  eg the BBC micro seemed 
to be one of the fastest around with a 1.8Mhz 6502, whereas the Sinclair 
offerings seemed to be the slowest, even with a 4Mhz Z80.

But then again, Sinclair did tend to use large ULAs and get the processor to 
work harder (doing most of the work), whereas Acorn tended to leave the 6502 
to do the processing work, and have extra chips for the bells and whistles 
(a 76489 sound chip ^_^) and screen enhancements (a 6845 CRT controller), etc.

-- 
Gllug mailing list  -  Gllug at gllug.org.uk
http://lists.gllug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/gllug