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Outstanding piece. Towards the end, Ken Shirrif has a good discussion around this: "[...] Still others would allow these functions to be packaged in a few chips, which would collectively make up the microprocessor.[...]"

Along those lines, there was also a set of "bit-sliced" chips from AMD, which looked very interesting: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMD_Am2900

P.S. The "Mick & Brick" book: https://www.amazon.com/Bit-slice-microprocessor-design-John-...




Bit-sliced was certainly "interesting". It was the interim step from discrete logic processors to everything else. In addition to the Am2900 (and follow-on Am29300), there was the Intel 3000 line, the 74x181/381, MMI 5700, Fairchild 9000, Signetics 8x line, etc., etc. Many late 70s/80s/early 90s computers were bit-slice processors.




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