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Exploring the NEC V20 CPU
A V20 CPU, courtesy of Konstantin Lanzet ( CC ) The NEC V20 was a 16-bit CPU released in 1984. It is pin-compatible with the Intel 8088 , a...
An owner of an original IBM 5150 could pull the 8088 out of their motherboard's CPU socket, install a V20, and enjoy improved software support and a decent performance increase at a rather attractive price. (186+) When utilized with a REP prefix, these instructions act like the string operation MOVS, except using an IO port specified by DX as the source and ES:DI as the destination. The V20 implements a low-power mode when halted; judicious use of the HLT instruction when active processing is not required (with careful consideration for the V20's interrupt behavior) could drastically reduce power utilization of the chip.
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