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You mean ARM not Atom? I dont think the ARM was a copy of anything, but ARM and MIPS both use a RISC approach.


If anything, I remember hearing a presentation where they claimed the ARM was influenced by the 6502 they used in the Atom an the BBC. The 6502 is an absolutely delightful machine to program for.

The jump delay slots, I think, are something they share with MIPS, but I'm not aware of anything else.


It influenced their decision to do their own, first and foremost. Basically Bill Mensch at Western Design Centre provided them evidence by example that a tiny team could build their own CPU.


> a tiny team could build their own CPU

I almost did that in college. It was a beauty - a stack based CPU that could run an almost decent FORTH on metal. I wonder if it would have worked if actually built.

Of course, ARM is a much more complex thing than my toy.


There's some stuff about it in this Sophie Wilson interview, which I found an interesting read: http://www.computerhistory.org/collections/catalog/102746190





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