Path: neptune!arp.anu.edu.au!reasoning-owner
Posted-Date: Wed, 10 Apr 91 16:08:42 -0800
Message-ID: <9104102308.AA22505@cheetah.cs.uidaho.edu>
Original-To: Jeffrey Joyce <joyce@cs.ubc.ca>
Original-Cc: info-hol<@@ted.cs.uidaho.edu>
Subject: Re: help with a reference 
References: Your message of 10 Apr 91 18:59:00 +0100.
             <1842*joyce@cs.ubc.ca> 
Date: Wed, 10 Apr 91 16:08:42 -0800
From: windley@cheetah.cs.uidaho.edu (Phil Windley)
Original-Resent-To: reasoning-people
Original-Resent-Reply-To: Phil Windley <windley@cheetah.cs.uidaho.edu>
Newsgroups: anu.reasoning
Distribution: anu
Sender: postmaster@arp.anu.edu.au
Approved: anu.reasoning@arp.anu.edu.au


Jeff wrote:
|-------------------*
| 
| Somewhere along the way I picked up the following quote:
|
| ``A comparatively simple 8-bit microprocessor such as the Z80 has
| 208 internal memory elements and 13 input signals; meaning that
| the circuit is capable of 2$^{221}$ different state transitions.
| Even if a transition could be simulated every microsecond, it
| would take 10$^{53}$ years to examine all the possible changes.
| This is far larger than the age of the universe.''
|
| ... but I've lost track of who said and where (but I'm sure that
| it was said in the context of work on Viper).
|
| Anyone out there recall seeing this ?
|-------------------*


Yes, Clive Pygott said is in Noden_HDL: An Engineering Approach to Hardware
Verification in "The Fusion of Hardware Design and Verification."

--phil--