Date   : Thu, 04 Feb 2016 16:30:10 +0000
From   : jgh@... (J.G.Harston)
Subject: 32016 Second Processor on DE0 Nano

Ed Spittles wrote:
> Umm, surely the TMS320* is a family of DSP chips?

Yes and no. The TMS320* is a CPU with DSP functionality built in.

I'm a bit fuzzy on the history, and it's a bit difficult digging through 
the documentations, but the manuals appear to show that the NS320* and 
the TMS320* are essentially the same thing. After failing in the 
workspace market NS retargetted the 320* at the embedded and signal 
processing market. Various 320* products have additional dedicated 
signal processing functionality built in accessed via specialised 
instrucions, a bit like having a built-in floating point unit.

Texas Instruments second-sourced the NS320* and developed it along their 
own lines, eventually taking over NS a few years ago. It looks like how 
the 6809 has evolved into the 6811 and 6812. They are similarly close 
enough that my 6809 Tube Client just needed tweeking to become a 6812 
Tube Client.

It's something that tripped me up when trying to track down NS320* 
programming references 20-odd years ago where everything I tracked down 
talked about DSP parts rather than CPU parts.

The TMS320C3x came out in about 1990 and is essentially a 32032 (32000 
CPU, 32-bit data bus) with an extended register set, floating point, 
signal processing, and a handful of additional I/O devices built in. The 
programming manuals show the instruction set to be nearly the same. I 
doubt that PanOS-era code would run directly on it, though, without 
being re-assembled.

Of course, I may be wrong!

-- 
J.G.Harston - jgh@...      - mdfs.net/jgh