Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uunet!samsung!usc!rutgers!deejay!bench!silos
From: silos@bench.sublink.ORG (Paolo Pennisi)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: World's Cheapest Unix Engine
Summary: 68030 vs 386sx
Message-ID: <457@bench.sublink.ORG>
Date: 29 Jun 90 00:53:57 GMT
References: <78-3JC2@ggpc2.ferranti.com> <2748@skye.ed.ac.uk> <31093@cup.portal.com>
Organization: Paolo Pennisi, Milano Italia
Lines: 46

In article <31093@cup.portal.com>, mmm@cup.portal.com (Mark Robert Thorson) writes:
> A while back, I referred to pending announcements of prices cuts on 
> Motorola 68K-family chips.  The info has now been published, so I feel
> free to post it here:
> 
> 68020  -- $47
> 68030  -- $95
> 68881  -- $38
> 68882  -- $44
> 
> All prices are in 1000-unit quantity at 16 MHz.  These prices only apply
> to the new packaging options, ceramic quad flat-packs for the CPU's and
> PLCC's for the FPU's.
[...]
> I had earlier said it looked like the 68020 would be the world's cheapest
> Unix engine.  I was forgetting that it was the 68030 which has the on-chip
> MMU.  At $95, it's more expensive than the 386SX ($64 in 1000's at 16 MHz).
> But when you factor in the price of the FPU, Motorola probably beats Intel.
> Motorola should also be faster, because the 386SX has a 16-bit external bus.
> BTW, there's a 12 MHz version of the 386SX for $55.50 in thousands.
[...]
Are we talking Unix engine or DOS ?
How can you compare an handicapped version of a chip whose father and
grandfather are crippled 16 bit segmented processor, a chip which spends
a lot of its silicon to implement compatibility with those dark ages
cpu to a real 32bit, semi Harvard, data and instruction cache processor,
with a real 32 bit data bus a a real 32bit address bus, support for multipro
cessing and more.
Sure, if we want to build the smaller and cheapest Unix engine we could also
use a Z8001 or a 80286 or whatever... maybe some crippled version III could
run also on a Z80.
The 68030 is definetly superior, more bangs per buck, even not including
the FPU. The 68882 is surely better than a 387DX, not to mention the 387SX.
And it costs definetly less!
  Paolo.

PS
 I don't want to start another religion war... but the comparison with
 the 386SX is too much.


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