The authors discuss the TMS34010, a high-performance 32-bit microprocessor with special instructions and hardware for handling the bit-field data and address manipulations often associated with computer graphics. They give a history of embedded microprocessors and examine the wide range of processors and applications covered by that term. They provide an overview of the internal architecture of the TMS34010 and discuss the choice of feature set in its design. Although it is aimed at graphics systems, the processor's large address reach, bit-field processing, and DRAM (dynamic random-access memory) interface make it suitable for many other embedded processing applications.