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Topic Title: The Ferranti F100-L microprocessor
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Created On: 14 January 2009 02:52 PM
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14 January 2009 02:52 PM
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jencam

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Was the Ferranti F100-L microprocessor ever sold to civilians or was it strictly military only hardware?
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23 January 2009 02:12 PM
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saridgway

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Joined: 07 May 2002

In " Ferranti, A History, Volume 2" (Carnegie Publishing Ltd, ISBN 978-1-905472-01-7), John F. Wilson relates that the F100-L was used in CEDREC, an energy management system marketed by Ferranti around 1980. This implies that the F100-L was not restricted to military use. There is also some Wiki information relating to use of the F100-L in an amateur radio satellite.

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 Steve Ridgway MIET
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25 January 2009 02:20 PM
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jencam

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So a few F100-L microprocessors escaped to the real world. My son is looking for one to include in his CPU collection.

Were there any successors to the F100-L with the same architecture and instruction set?
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26 January 2009 03:10 PM
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saridgway

Posts: 148
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Originally posted by: jencam

Were there any successors to the F100-L with the same architecture and instruction set?


Not as far as I am aware. Although I was working for Ferranti when the F100-L was around, I was in a different division to the one that produced the F100-L. Different divisions of the company generally had little to do with one another. In fact, in the late '70s we were using the National Semiconductors PACE chip, a more commercially oriented 16 bit micro roughly contemporary with the F100-L. (Sorry, no, I don't have any PACE or F100-L chips in my cellar).

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 Steve Ridgway MIET
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22 August 2011 06:22 PM
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CAVEMAN

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I worked at Ferranti Instruments Moston in the early 80's and was one of the engineers working on the Cedrec system - so I can state with certain knowledge the system was Z80 based.
The firmware was written in Z80 assembler (those were the days) but wasn't much of a success and Moston closed - I don't think the product line was kept up.
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23 August 2011 02:28 PM
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saridgway

Posts: 148
Joined: 07 May 2002

Originally posted by: CAVEMAN

I worked at Ferranti Instruments Moston in the early 80's and was one of the engineers working on the Cedrec system - so I can state with certain knowledge the system was Z80 based.


I stand corrected. I wonder where Wilson got his information from? Come to think of it, we had an energy management system at Cheadle Heath which I think may also have been Z80 based. I'm not sure whether it was related to the Cedrec system or not.

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 Steve Ridgway MIET
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IET » Electronic engineering » The Ferranti F100-L microprocessor

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