Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!csinc!rpeglar From: rpeglar@csinc.UUCP (Rob Peglar) Newsgroups: comp.arch Subject: Re: Speed Kills Summary: it's not design, it's marketing. Message-ID: <220@csinc.UUCP> Date: 28 Jun 90 13:55:56 GMT References: <447@garth.UUCP> <4040@taux01.nsc.com> <1990Jun27.032824.5138@nlm.nih.gov> Distribution: comp Organization: Control Systems, Inc., St. Paul MN Lines: 50 In article <1990Jun27.032824.5138@nlm.nih.gov>, usenet@nlm.nih.gov (usenet news poster) writes: > In article <502@garth.UUCP> fouts@bozeman.ingr.com (Martin Fouts) writes: > > > >The underlying point behind the original posting was ... to try to get > >some conversation going towards architectures which scale over time. > > > >It has been done once or twice in the past. IBM got a lot of milage > >out of the 360 and Moto has done a reasonable job with the 68K. How > >can we make those cases more common, rather than the exception? > > DEC has gotten 15 years out of VAX/VMS. How about the 8008/8088/80x86 > line? SPARC and MIPS will be around for quite a while. The key seems > to be achieving market success with an innovative design and then > supporting upward compatability. Once you have a body of third party > software depending on your architecture, it will live a long life. > > >-- > >Martin Fouts > > David States Market success is dependent on many factors. One of these factors is innovative design - but not in microprocessors, at least for the most broad market, that of the personal computer (loosely defined as whatever system a non-technical person would use on their desktop). For the next market "up" (down ?), that loosely defined as whatever system a technical (e.g. practicing computer scientist) person would use on their desktop, innovative processor design has a greater impact on success. Please define what market you mean in future posting. The previous discussion freely mixed vendors, processors, and operating systems as if those entities were all equivalent. IMHO, for the most broad market, the key to success is, in relative order, 1. Marketing 2. Marketing 3. Marketing you get the point. Marketing includes such issues as price, availability, service, etc.etc. Not processor design. High-level (i.e. binary) compatibility is important, but not as important as marketing. Rob -- Rob Peglar Comtrol Corp. 2675 Patton Rd., St. Paul MN 55113 A Control Systems Company (800) 926-6876 ...uunet!csinc!rpeglar