Revision as of 03:27, 1 January 2016

Not to be confused with TMS0100.

TMS1000 Series
Developer	[[designer::Texas Instruments]]
Manufacturer	[[manufacturer::Texas Instruments]]
Release date	1974
Architecture	4-bit
Process	[[process::8μm]]
Clock	Up to 400kHz

The TMS1000 Series was a family of 4-bit microcontrollers designed and manufactured by Texas Instruments in the early 1970s. Originally made using pMOS technology, TI later expended the family into nMOS and CMOS.

History

In September of 1971, TI finished the design for their TMS0100 single-chip calculators. Designs where done by the Texas Instruments engineers Gary Boone and Michael Cochran. Gary patented the invention for a single-chip processing machine on Aug 31, 1971. On Sep 4 1973, he was awarded U.S. Patent 3,757,306. Building on top of their experiences with the TMS0100 and Boone's 8-bit microprocessor prototype (the TMX1795) they went on to design the 4-bit TMS1000 microcontroller series. Boone was later awarded U.S. Patent 4,074,351 for the modern microcontroller.

After being slightly refined, the chip was released to general market in 1974. A few dozen different variations were created with various ROM and RAM sizes. Due to its cheap price, the TMS1000 family enjoyed a tremendous success in consumer electronics.

Applications

The TMS1000 was cheap enough to be used in everything from TI's own calculators to microwave ovens, washers, jukeboxes, video games, toys, games, and thousands of other electronic products. Over one hundred million processors were sold.

Museum displays

• TMS1000, Computer History Museum - note that the description on the museum website is actually incorrect. The chip is correctly identified as TMS1000NL, however the description is confusing it with TI's primitive calculator chip TMS1802C of the TMS0100 series, which is unrelated to the TMS1000 series, despite the similar numbering used.

Parts

Architecture

This section requires expansion; you can help adding the missing info.

The TMS 1000 had a relatively simple design with only 43 instructions and 2 general purpose registers. Similar to the Intel 4004, the chip only had a single level of stack and no interrupts.

Documents

• TMS1000 Series Programmer's Reference Manual, 1975
• TMS1000 Series Data Manua, 1976
• TMS1000 Series, 1975

References

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