Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!zds-ux!gerry
From: gerry@zds-ux.UUCP (Gerry Gleason)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Miscellaneous 8086 History (Was: Re: 386s are workstations?)
Keywords: 86 68
Message-ID: <329@zds-ux.UUCP>
Date: 30 May 90 16:04:07 GMT
References: <1990May22.203656.1091@xavax.com> <54810@microsoft.UUCP> <1527@Terra.cc.brunel.ac.uk>
Reply-To: gerry@zds-ux.UUCP (Gerry Gleason)
Organization: Zenith Data Systems
Lines: 34

In article <1527@Terra.cc.brunel.ac.uk> md89mch@cc.brunel.ac.uk (Martin Howe) writes:
>In article <1990May22.203656.1091@xavax.com> alvitar@xavax.com
>(Phillip Harbison) writes:
>>so what is gained by propagating an 8080-like architecture?

>>Nothing, in my opinion.
  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>I agree; the problems it brought are worse than the benefits which, it is
>apocryphally held, are that it made code conversion easier (8080/5 -> 8086).
>There were automatic translators for this. YUKK !

As much as I don't like all the architectural oddities that have developed
through this process, but I disagree with your assessment of automatic
translators.  Sure they produce that typically runs slower than the original
on last generation's processor, but they are an important way to get
programs up and running quickly without a lot of re-engineering, thus
gaining time for compilers, tools, applications to be written for the
new architecture.  Of course, today we use C almost like a universal
asselbly language, making this type of compatibility much less important.

>I would like to have seen some sort of capability based x86 (x > 4) chip
>using segmentation as a basis. However, you'd probably need 32-bit segment

What I'd like to see is for somebody to add support for type objects to
their RISC design ala the SOAR idea.  With more tools, languages, and
systems build with object oriented concepts, I'm certain the market is
ready for this type of processor.  From a software perspective, you
can build robust software much more easily with all the run-time bounds
and type checking these environments provide, but without some hardware
support, it is very expensive in performance.  Any RISC architects care
to comment on this, or should we take you silence to mean it's a hot
project, and no one can talk ;-).

Gerry Gleason