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Fairchild F8

1975

Fairchild's 1975 8-bit microprocessor family, used in the Channel F, the first cartridge-based games console.

Machines

Reference & documentation

External technical references for programming Fairchild F8 and for writing emulators.

ResourceTypeNotes
Fairchild F3850 Central Processing Unit Datasheet (1982) ↗DatasheetCanonical CPU datasheet with electrical and timing specs
1982 Fairchild Microprocessor Products Data Book ↗DatasheetFull family datasheets: 3850, 3851, 3853 chips
Fairchild F8 Opcode / Mnemonic & Flag-Status Tables (L. Turner) ↗Instruction setEvery opcode with cycles and flags affected
Fairchild F3850 CPU Datasheet (pinout diagrams) ↗Pinout40-pin package pinout and signal descriptions
F8 Guide To Programming (Fairchild, 1976) ↗ProgrammingOfficial programming manual with instruction usage examples
Fairchild/Mostek F8 Development Kit Assembly Manual (1975) ↗ProgrammingAssembly-level dev kit manual with board layout
F8 Preliminary Microprocessor User's Manual (Jan 1975) ↗ReferenceSystem architecture, ROMC signals, interrupts, and I/O
Fairchild F8 - Chessprogramming Wiki ↗ReferenceRegisters, scratchpad, ISAR, and instruction table overview
MAME F8 CPU Core (f8.cpp) ↗SourceReference emulator implementing all opcodes and ROMC states