Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!samsung!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!uwm.edu!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!ux1.cso.uiuc.edu!uxa.cso.uiuc.edu!mms00786
From: mms00786@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu
Newsgroups: comp.windows.ms
Subject: Re: Will windows 3 run on 8086 machine?
Message-ID: <118500007@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu>
Date: 13 Apr 90 16:39:44 GMT
References: <205344@<1990Apr10>
Lines: 21
Nf-ID: #R:<1990Apr10:205344:uxa.cso.uiuc.edu:118500007:000:1038
Nf-From: uxa.cso.uiuc.edu!mms00786    Apr 12 22:28:00 1990


Which brings me to a curious point: as a computer architecture student, I am
interested in what exactly makes it possible for a 68000 Mac to have a
usable GUI, whereas the general consensus is that the comparable 8086 cannot.
(Please, this is an objective query, no flames) My question is not about
which one has the higher quality GUI, but as to what aspects of an 
architecture make a GUI more readily implementable. Is it segmentation that
imposes a stiff penalty (Intel style segmentation.)? Perhaps the existence
of so many video standards on one causes a lot of overhead? As a case in 
point, Microsoft Word on a 1 Meg Mac SE is fully functional and usable; Word
for Windows on a 1 Meg 286 is unable to handle 4 different font sizes without
giving a out of memory error. 

More importantly, how would one go about identifying architectural structures
that most benefit a GUI? For example, I assume some OS person talked to an
architect and stuff like TLB's and page fault interrupts were designed.

Just shooting the sh*t

Milan
.