What if we never got past the 8-bit chips?

[BSA Starfire]

BTW, if you can't surpass 8 bits and 10MHz you can't have CDs.

OK, that's interesting, but makes little difference, as audio cassette was fine to load the supercharger.

I assume then that CD required a 16-bit processor then?

 

Best regards,

Chris

[potatohead]

If the phones could send text, their popularity would be the same.

 

ROL WTF LOL

[Mirage]

I'm not sure I understand the CD comment. Do you mean to *make* CD's, to connect a CD drive to a computer, or... ? What context do you mean. If you are saying you can't use a CD-ROM as a storage device for an 8-bit computer, that's not true at all... people have used CD-ROMs/CD's on C64's and probably Atari 8-bits as well. As both storage and to play music from. I assume you mean some other context?

[STICH666]

Wasn't the Colecovision 16bit? Not surpassing 8 bit in the 80's wouldn't make sense since the Colecovision was released in 1980.

[JamesD]

I'm not sure I understand the CD comment. Do you mean to *make* CD's, to connect a CD drive to a computer, or... ? What context do you mean. If you are saying you can't use a CD-ROM as a storage device for an 8-bit computer, that's not true at all... people have used CD-ROMs/CD's on C64's and probably Atari 8-bits as well. As both storage and to play music from. I assume you mean some other context?

What part of 16bit audio at 44kHz sampling rate in stereo fits in an 8 bit 10MHz world? And that doesn't include the additional bandwidth on the disk for error checking. If you couldn't produce 16 bit CPUs you certainly couldn't produce the chips for CD audio. No CD audio, no CD data storage either.

That's not to say there might not have been another improved audio format... but it would probably be analog. However, with a 10MHz limitation... analog parts may have limitations as well. Like I said... alter the laws of physics and it changes everything.

If you can do CD audio... you can have 16bit CPUs over 10MHz. You can't pick and chose when those limits apply.

[Mirage]

I'm not sure I understand the CD comment. Do you mean to *make* CD's, to connect a CD drive to a computer, or... ? What context do you mean. If you are saying you can't use a CD-ROM as a storage device for an 8-bit computer, that's not true at all... people have used CD-ROMs/CD's on C64's and probably Atari 8-bits as well. As both storage and to play music from. I assume you mean some other context?

What part of 16bit audio at 44kHz sampling rate in stereo fits in an 8 bit 10MHz world? And that doesn't include the additional bandwidth on the disk for error checking. If you couldn't produce 16 bit CPUs you certainly couldn't produce the chips for CD audio. No CD audio, no CD data storage either.

That's not to say there might not have been another improved audio format... but it would probably be analog. However, with a 10MHz limitation... analog parts may have limitations as well. Like I said... alter the laws of physics and it changes everything.

If you can do CD audio... you can have 16bit CPUs over 10MHz. You can't pick and chose when those limits apply.

 

Since this is a hypothetical discussion, I do think it's possible to hypothesize different timelines of product development. Maybe it wouldn't have been possible to even have created something such as a CD to begin with... maybe that's what you're saying. Honestly, I'm not quite sure what you are saying. All I am saying is that people have in fact attached CD-ROM drives to 8-bit computers to use as storage devices. That is a fact. Now, whether the CD's could have existed to begin with... yes, that's another question entirely.

 

Keep in mind, I'm not talking about 16-bit audio at 44kHz sampling. I never mentioned that at all... I'm talking about data storage.

[JamesD]

Since this is a hypothetical discussion, I do think it's possible to hypothesize different timelines of product development. Maybe it wouldn't have been possible to even have created something such as a CD to begin with... maybe that's what you're saying. Honestly, I'm not quite sure what you are saying. All I am saying is that people have in fact attached CD-ROM drives to 8-bit computers to use as storage devices. That is a fact. Now, whether the CD's could have existed to begin with... yes, that's another question entirely.

 

Keep in mind, I'm not talking about 16-bit audio at 44kHz sampling. I never mentioned that at all... I'm talking about data storage.

<groan>

It still requires a certain bit rate and decoding even if it's just data.

If you can have the CD, you can at least have 16 bit CPUs. It's a fact, deal with it.

 

BTW, do I really need to remind people that the 8 bit CPUs were introduced as controller chips?

And they were intended to control hardware attached to larger CPUs.

 

If you put such limitations on one thing you have the same limitations on everything else.

No larger CPUs, no need for 8 bit controllers.

You might be stuck with tubes and single bit transistors.

That's why I changed the limitations to be more realistic.

[roland p]

It still requires a certain bit rate and decoding even if it's just data.

If you can have the CD, you can at least have 16 bit CPUs. It's a fact, deal with it.

What makes a CD 16 bit?

 

It's just a stream of pits. I bet some simplified form of a CD could be made which outputs data at 19,2kbit/s for example.

[Mirage]

<groan>

 

I actually stop reading or paying attention to people in conversations at something like this. Yes, this was a conversation. No need to be rude.

 

And furthermore, you seem to be ignoring the fact that people *have* used CD's for data storage on 8-bit machines. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_64_peripherals http://www.dusted.dk/?view=commodore64-ide64-eth64 I'm not going to bother digging for more specific info right now.

 

You may very well have relevant and interesting info to share, I'm not even saying you don't have valid points. Perhaps you do. Perhaps there's something about that that I'm not understanding... probably is. But, since you're being rude, this conversation is over so far as I'm concerned. Explain things in a non-condescending, polite way, or don't do it at all.

 

<ignored>

Edited February 16, 2009 by Mirage1972

[JamesD]

What is being done in this world is a moot point in this situation. The CD drive is doing the real work and then the 8 bit CPU is talking to the CD drive over an IDE or SCSI bus interface at a much slower data rate. The computer is not reading directly from the CD but what the CD drive reads.

 

A CD drive has internal circuitry that over samples the data coming back from the laser much faster than the bit rate that it's stored in, it adjusts the laser position constantly, reads the data, error corrects the data, buffers the data and then it sends it to the computer as the computer asks for it. Even without 16 bits the speed required to do all that is more than a 10MHz cpu could handle. It's the oversampling and response time to keep the laser on track that would be the biggest show stopper. 16 times oversampling x 44kHz x 2 channels x 16 because CD is 16 bit audio samples (not counting the error correction which is 1/3 of an audio disk) = over 22,528,000 samples / sec. That is higher than the CPU clock rate limitation. And that is the same rate for data CDs. Audio CDs are just data. Even with lower oversampling you have to do everything within a handful of clock cycles. And no, multiple CPUs cannot break up the task to overcome the limitation.

 

BTW, you have to oversample the data because the data is stored as dots and dashes on the disk.

Edited February 16, 2009 by JamesD

[Mirage]

What is being done in this world is a moot point in this situation. The CD drive is doing the real work and then the 8 bit CPU is talking to the CD drive over an IDE or SCSI bus interface at a much slower data rate. The computer is not reading directly from the CD but what the CD drive reads.

 

A CD drive has internal circuitry that over samples the data coming back from the laser much faster than the bit rate that it's stored in, it adjusts the laser position constantly, reads the data, error corrects the data, buffers the data and then it sends it to the computer as the computer asks for it. Even without 16 bits the speed required to do all that is more than a 10MHz cpu could handle. It's the oversampling and response time to keep the laser on track that would be the biggest show stopper. 16 times oversampling x 44kHz x 2 channels x 16 because CD is 16 bit audio samples (not counting the error correction which is 1/3 of an audio disk) = over 22,528,000 samples / sec. That is higher than the CPU clock rate limitation. And that is the same rate for data CDs. Audio CDs are just data. Even with lower oversampling you have to do everything within a handful of clock cycles. And no, multiple CPUs cannot break up the task to overcome the limitation.

 

BTW, you have to oversample the data because the data is stored as dots and dashes on the disk.

 

Thank you for the explanation. It was possible to do that without being condescending and rude. People listen a whole lot better when you just explain rather than talk down to them. This is a message board with actual people on the other end, not the wild west.

Edited February 16, 2009 by Mirage1972

[JamesD]

BTW, if you can't surpass 8 bits and 10MHz you can't have CDs.

OK, that's interesting, but makes little difference, as audio cassette was fine to load the supercharger.

I assume then that CD required a 16-bit processor then?

 

Best regards,

Chris

Actually, some CD players process audio in more than 16 bits to handle errors without introducing noise.

(In the case of the supercharger you are talking audio)

[sonicgreg]

hmm...well

All video games would still be in the golden age

many kids would marvel at gyruss' graphics

every kid wouldn't want to have the newest console where you are 1st person in a 3d world with a gun shaped controller with a motion sensor with 1,432,987,786,456 buttons for everything you can't physically do on your own

the world would not have websites on their computers

Atari would have 9.7billion cartridges for every movie, thought, or event: the last crusade, world war II, if I could fly etc

[JamesD]

256 color modes would be possible, probably more given the MHz.

Wolfenstein 3D made it to the IIgs and fast Spectrum clones, Gatecrasher to the CoCo 3 (at 1.7MHz!)... so we would have 3Dish games.

Some sort of math coprocessor would still be possible but probably with reduced precision or more clock cycles. It would still be faster than doing it with a standard CPU.

And just because a CD isn't possible doesn't mean an alternative wouldn't be developed. Everything would be designed around lower bandwidth.

 

If a CPU is limited to 8 bits then there are other potential limitations. Pipelined CPUs may not be possible. However, some way of tying CPUs together may be doable to implement the same capability but much less efficiently. You have multiple parts running at 10MHz to execute 1 program and those grouped for multi-procesing. Think of everything built into a single chip these days but implemented as slower external circuitry.

Peak performance isn't great but throughput could be good.

 

If the MHz had been something like 40 then you could implement most of the stuff we have today with the possible exception of HDTV.

I think the MHz limit would be more realistic than bits because it would be a limit of the speed of silicon transistors.

However, if you have a limit like that then scientists would start experimenting with gallium arsenide or optical computers much earlier.

Instead of silicon we may have made the jump to another even faster technology long ago and computers could be even faster than what we have now.

By the time 8 bit CPUs came around they may have been faster than what we had. Change one thing and everything else changes.

[Mirage]

That's the direction I was going to go with that if my questions had been answered in the form of a conversation to begin with. Interesting info, thanks.

Edited February 17, 2009 by Mirage1972

[BydoEmpire]

Everyday would be like waking up in heaven and people wouldn't all be morons obsessed with uploading pictures of themselves every split second of their lives. Also, videogames would be much better.

Hah, agreed! 8-bit games that allow you to save high scores (or compare scores w/ friends online) - perfect.

[roland p]

256 color modes would be possible, probably more given the MHz.

 

The MSX2+ (8bit Z80 processor) had an V9958 video processor which could produce 19268 colors with a sort of yuv colorspace compression. The pictures it produced where beautiful. The compressed 19268 picures took exactly as much space as 256 uncompressed images.

[BSA Starfire]

I think one thing I have learned here is that need is the mother of invention.

I reckon we would have some pretty awesome steam engines right now if we didn't have internal combustion engines.

I am enjoying this disscussion, thanks again all for participating.

Chris

[JamesD]

256 color modes would be possible, probably more given the MHz.

 

The MSX2+ (8bit Z80 processor) had an V9958 video processor which could produce 19268 colors with a sort of yuv colorspace compression. The pictures it produced where beautiful. The compressed 19268 picures took exactly as much space as 256 uncompressed images.

Ahhh yes.... but that is in this world. Just because it exists here, doesn't mean it could exist with other limits.

[roland p]

Ahhh yes.... but that is in this world. Just because it exists here, doesn't mean it could exist with other limits.

Well, that rule applies to everything...