The Texas Instruments 8800 Software Development Board (SDB) is a microprogrammable
32-bit computer card. The system has a writable control store, implemented
in RAM rather than ROM. Such a system does not achieve the speed or
density of a microprogrammed system with a ROM control store. However, it is useful
for developing prototypes and for educational purposes.
The 8800 SDB consists of the following components (Figure 16.17):
• Microcode memory
• Microsequencer
• 32-bit ALU
• Floating-point and integer processor
• Local data memory
Two buses link the internal components of the system. The DA bus provides
data from the microinstruction data field to the ALU, the floating-point processor