Only once in a lifetime will a new invention come about to touch every aspect of our lives. Such a device that changes the way we work, live, and playis a special one, indeed. The Microprocessor has been around since 1971 years, but in the last few years it has changed the American calculators to video gamesand computers (Givone 1). Many microprocessors have been manufactured for all sorts of products; some have succeeded and some have not. This paper willdiscuss the evolution and history of the most prominent 16 and 32 bit microprocessors in the microcomputer and how they are similar to and different from eachother. Because microprocessors are a subject that most people cannot relate to and do not know much about, this paragraph will introduce some of the terms thatwill be in- volved in the subsequent paragraphs. Throughout the paper the 16-bit and 32-bit mi- croprocessors are compared and contrasted. The number 16 in the16-bit microproces- sor refers how many registers there are or how much storage is available for the mi- croprocessor (Aumiaux, 3). The microprocessor has amemory address such as A16, and at this address the specific commands to the microprocessor are stored in the memory of the computer (Aumiaux, 3). So with the16-bit microprocessor there are 576 places to store data. With the 32-bit microprocessor there are twice as many places to store data making the microprocessorfaster. Another common term which is mentioned frequently in the paper is the oscil- lator or the time at which the processors clock ticks. The oscillator is the pacemaker for the microprocessor which tells what frequency the microprocessor can proc- ess information, this value is measured in Mega-hertz or MHz. Ananosecond is a measurement of time in a processor, or a billionth of a second. This is used to measure the time it takes for the computer to execute an instructions,other wise knows as a cy- cle. There are many different ty...
