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From: mfi@serc.cis.ufl.edu (Mark Interrante)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Commodore, Amiga, Apple, and MAC
Message-ID: <22773@uflorida.cis.ufl.EDU>
Date: 29 Mar 90 14:28:35 GMT
References: <1994@crash.cts.com> <5479@sugar.hackercorp.com>
Sender: news@uflorida.cis.ufl.EDU
Reply-To: mfi@serc.cis.ufl.edu (Mark Interrante)
Organization: UF CIS Department
Lines: 28

In article <5479@sugar.hackercorp.com> karl@sugar.hackercorp.com (Karl Lehenbauer) writes:
>So Apple has discovered coprocessors, eh?  Ironically, I recall a flame
>war a couple years back with a bunch of Mac people arguing that the Mac
>not having coprocessors was a *benefit*!  

Note the difference in the mac coprocessor scheme, the processor is a
30mhz risc chip that uses downloaded code.  It is not a custom chip
that has hardwired graphics operations.  

>Further, as the vendors of various PC boards have been learning, wimpy
>coprocessors can be a substantial impediment to performance.  Many vendors
>are abandoning their 8088, 80186, etc, processors in favor of much higher
>performance ones in, for example, networking and multiport serial boards.
>
>Any Mac apologists care to compare the performance of a 6502 to the
>very-obsolete-and-never-particularly-attractive 8088?

The 6502 is used as an embedded controller for operations that are
inherently low speed; ie. serial ports and keyboards.  BTW the 6502
controller runs at 10mhz.


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Mark Interrante   		Software Engineering Research Center
mfi@beach.cis.ufl.edu		CIS Department, University of Florida 32611
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"Imagine what it would be like if TV actually were good. It would be the end
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