HP-48 Series - Specifications

Specifications

The HP-48 series' Saturn microprocessor is a hybrid 64-bit / 20-bit CPU hardware-wise but acts like a 4-bit processor in that it presents nibble-based data to programs and uses a nibble-based addressing system. The main registers A, B, C, D, along with temp registers R0, R1, R2, R3, and R4 are a full 64-bits wide, but the data registers D0 & D1 are only 20-bit. External logical data fetches are transparently converted to 8-bit physical fetches. The processor has a 20-bit address bus available to code but due to the presence of the high/low nibble selection bit, only 19 bits are available externally.

In both the HP-48S/SX and G/GX series, the Saturn CPU core is integrated as part of a more complex integrated circuit (IC) package. These packages have codenames inspired by the members of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. The codename of the IC is Clarke in the S/SX, after William Clark, and Yorke in the G/GX, after Clark's manservant. The previous series of Saturn-based ICs were codenamed Lewis, after Meriwether Lewis.

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