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> It used _main memory_ as registers?

Yes, that's exactly how it worked. The 9900 only had one internal register, which pointed at the current "register bank" in main memory. I worked at TI in those days and wrote code for the 9900. It wasn't a crazy idea when the chip was designed; after all it made context switches completely free. But after the chip went into production, the speed differences between CPUs and DRAM started becoming obvious.



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