Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!uflorida!haven!grebyn!ckp
From: ckp@grebyn.com (Checkpoint Technologies)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Additional CPUs (was: A rough future for the Amiga???)
Message-ID: <19593@grebyn.com>
Date: 11 Apr 90 14:15:06 GMT
References: <16192@snow-white.udel.EDU> <1990Apr8.013940.12984@wam.umd.edu> <10715@cbmvax.commodore.com> <19543@grebyn.com> <1990Apr10.163745.16255@wam.umd.edu>
Reply-To: ckp@grebyn.UUCP (Checkpoint Technologies)
Organization: Grebyn Timesharing, Vienna, VA, USA
Lines: 22

In article <1990Apr10.163745.16255@wam.umd.edu> ddev@wam.umd.edu (Don DeVoe) writes:
>In article <19543@grebyn.com> ckp@grebyn.UUCP (Checkpoint Technologies) writes:
>>
>>If you have a A2090 or A2090A controller, you also have a Z80 CPU
>>working as an IO processor.  This is directly analagous to the Max
>>IIfx's IO coprocessors.
>
>Hardly analogous. The IIfx comes with its coprocessors on board, whereas
>the 2090 (which works pretty poorly anyway, from what I hear) costs
>extra $$$, and certainly isn't standard equipment.  This hardly invalidates
>Apple's claim...

I wasn't trying to invalidate Apple's claim.  And I still think the Z80
in the A2090 is analogous; it's doing an IO task with a general purpose
8 bit CPU.  The IO processors in the Max IIfx are doing IO tasks with a
general purpose 8 bit CPU.  In the A2090, it's a Z80 and it's doing disk
control.  In the IIfx they're 6502s, and one's doing serial IO and I
don't remember what the other is doing.  The A2090 is an option card and
the IIfx has their 6502's built in.  Alright, there are differences, but
I meant that the additional CPU's functions were similar, relating two
different engineers' ideas on solving the same problem: relieving the
main CPU of IO processing.