Well after rereading the 890 construction for the sixth time, I am going to waffle on this.

<a central processing unit that accesses memory and that fetches and executes

instructions directly, separately, and independently of the main central

processing unit.>

This separate CPU is not going to do anything unless it receives some input from the main CPU. How else would it know that memory needs to be accessed and it needs to do something?

The DMA accesses memory. The DMA fetches and executes instructions received out of memory(independently and separately), acting as a coprocessor. I don't believe that construction disallows the main CPU from telling the DMA CPU initially to do something. Otherwise that DMA CPU would be as dumb as a piece of wood, and of no value. So instruction input, obviously must still allowed, and I think that is the reliance on the main CPU that we say is still required.

So I retract my earlier statement that this is a loss. The construction does not disallow main CPU input, only that the accessing, fetching and execution are done separatley and independent of the main CPU.

I think we may be good to go on this one. Are there different views?

Opty