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From: jshekhel@feds19.prime.com (Jerry Shekhel )
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: "DOS machines" (Was: TT (Who has one?))
Keywords: long
Message-ID: <712@cvbnetPrime.COM>
Date: 31 Jul 90 15:48:18 GMT
References: <1990Jul19.135115.2032@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu> <1990Jul19.160526.2215@arcsun.arc.ab.ca> <6764@vax1.acs.udel.EDU> <692@cvbnetPrime.COM> <3160@rwthinf.UUCP> <701@cvbnetPrime.COM> <1960@ncrcam.Cambridge.NCR.COM>
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Reply-To: jshekhel@feds19.UUCP (Jerry Shekhel )
Organization: Prime Computervision, Bedford MA
Lines: 62

In article <1960@ncrcam.Cambridge.NCR.COM> mreiss@ncrcam.Cambridge.NCR.COM () writes:
>
>In article <701@cvbnetPrime.COM> jshekhel@feds19.UUCP (Jerry Shekhel ) writes:
>>
>>Oh yeah.  And I suppose Motorola thought about virtual memory management
>>and UNIX when they burned the original 68000 into silicon?  Why is it, then,
>>that the 286 can run a real OS with virtual memory and protected address
>>spaces for each process (UNIX System V), and the 68000 can't?  Am I missing
>>something here?
>
>Yes --- you definately are !!!
>
>8086, then 80186, then 80286 --- Three versions to run full Unix.  
>Personally, I have never seen a 286 run full Unix.  I was under the
>impression that it took a 386 to do it right.  I have seen a 286 run
>Xenix though.
>

First of all, the 80186 was not the "successor" to the 8086 -- it was
just a different version of it, more suited towards microcontroller
applications.  The 80286 is the second chip in the 86 series.  There are
at least 3 vendors of UNIX System V for 286 machines.

>
>68000, then 68010 can run full Unix.  Not bad, only the second version of the 
>architecture.
>

The 68010 runs UNIX?  Are you referring to the long-gone Sun-2 line?  Didn't
Sun use proprietary memory management hardware for all their worksation
lines all the way through Sun-3/68020?  The 68010 is the second version of
the architecture?  What about the 68008?

WHO THE HELL CARES WHAT VERSION of the architecture can run UNIX?  Does it
make sense FOR YOU to choose a 68000-based machine over a cheaper and much
more powerful 386-based machine just because you think it took MOTOROLA fewer
tries to make their chips capable of running UNIX?

>
>The 80386 should be compared to the 68030, shouldn't it.  Now do you
>see why the Intel architecture is so limited.  When compared to THE
>CORRESPONDING member of the Motorola family, the Intel family falls
>far short.
>

You still haven't told me WHERE it falls "far short" -- at what stage.
There are too many ways to compare the processors.  One could ask, "At
what stage in each chip line could the chip run UNIX without any additional
memory management hardware?"  The answer there would be "80286 and 68030".
The chip lines are too different to be compared feature for feature.  What
difference does it make anyway, since by the time the 386 and the 68030
became available, the two lines converged in terms of capabilities.

Your argument is like saying that the Lexus is superior to the BMW because
the first version of the Lexus is comparable to the umpteenth version of the
BMW.  I suppose that makes the BMW line "so limited"?

>
>Michael A. Reiss				|
>						|	mike

-- Jerry Shekhel