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1 vote

Was there any computer since about 1960 without interrupt support?

Yeah, the higher perfromance CP/M computers (either an 8080 or Z80 processor) had interrupts but some had to poll the devices. These used a BIOS so your CP/M applications could access the screen, disk(...
hwertz's user avatar
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5 votes

Was there any computer since about 1960 without interrupt support?

The Parallax Propeller processor for quadcopters has (I write has because it's in production today for its intended purpose) no interrupts, and this is an advertised feature (so that execution ...
Joshua's user avatar
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8 votes

Was there any computer since about 1960 without interrupt support?

The Atari 2600 Video Computer System draws its entire screen using techniques that on other systems would be accomplished via raster interrupts, but its 6502 die is in a 28-pin package that omits both ...
supercat's user avatar
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26 votes
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Was there any computer since about 1960 without interrupt support?

The Wang 2200 series of minicomputers (Apr 1973 to Jul 1989) was implemented without hardware interrupts. All peripheral interaction was handled via polling. These machines were fitted with a BASIC ...
A. I. Breveleri's user avatar
23 votes

Was there any computer since about 1960 without interrupt support?

The first microprocessor, the Intel 4004, had no interrupt capability. Its successor, the 8008, had interrupts, but with the shallow call stack and the need to reserve scarce registers to do any sort ...
John Doty's user avatar
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10 votes

Was there any computer since about 1960 without interrupt support?

Another example from the embedded world: the Parallax Propeller uses multiple CPU cores to service events instead of interrupts. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parallax_Propeller#...
filo's user avatar
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11 votes

Was there any computer since about 1960 without interrupt support?

Although the Apple II family of computers allows I/O cards to use interrupts, none of the internal hardware on the Apple II nor the Apple //e offers any support for them beyond making the pins ...
supercat's user avatar
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20 votes

Was there any computer since about 1960 without interrupt support?

Sharp pocket computers based on the ESR-H SC61860 micro-controller (PC-12xx, 13xx and 14xx) did not have interrupts. No instructions like rti, nothing. Everything was done by polling (it had for ...
Patrick Schlüter's user avatar
11 votes

Was there any computer since about 1960 without interrupt support?

Lots of examples could be found among many of USSR era home computers based on the KR580VM80 chip (a clone of i8080). In a normal i8080 system, the CPU is supposed to work with companion (or 'chipset')...
lvd's user avatar
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19 votes

Was there any computer since about 1960 without interrupt support?

Would embedded systems count? If yes, there were GI's PIC1600 MCUs (http://bitsavers.org/components/gi/PIC/1983_PIC_Series_Microcomputer_Data_Manual.pdf), predecessors of PIC microcontrollers by ...
lvd's user avatar
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