What is the purpose of the Or8Way chip?

[wetFence]

I don't understand what the Or8Way chip is for. It takes an 8 bit number and output a binary number? I can't see how it makes any practical sense?

[cadet1620]

wetFence wrote

I don't understand what the Or8Way chip is for. It takes an 8 bit number and output a binary number? I can't see how it makes any practical sense?

The Or8Way chip implements ORing together the 8 individual input bits to generate a single output bit. It can be used to detect if any of the input bits is set.

You can expand its implementation definition to this pseudocode which may be clearer:

    a = in[0];
    b = in[1];
    c = in[2];
    d = in[3];
    e = in[4];
    f = in[5];
    g = in[6];
    h = in[7];
   out = a | b | c | d | e | f | g | h;

--Mark

[wetFence]

Oh I see, thanks

[iAPX]

Put it the other way, at high-level, this Or8Way is a non-0 comparator, sending back 0 (false) if input is 00000000, or 1 (true) is different of 0.