Newsgroups: comp.arch
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Historical architectural advances??
Message-ID: <1990Oct11.164904.12550@zoo.toronto.edu>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <1990Oct4.001346.4139@Stardent.COM> <8052@scolex.sco.COM> <2926@sequent.cs.qmw.ac.uk>
Date: Thu, 11 Oct 90 16:49:04 GMT

In article <2926@sequent.cs.qmw.ac.uk> eliot@cs.qmw.ac.uk (Eliot Miranda) writes:
>I think you have to include the Xerox Alto (ancestor of the Xerox D
>machines). It was the first personal computer with
>all of the following
>       ...
>        interface to ethernet
>        multitasking microprogramming (8 different microcode
>                tasks at different priorities)

These last two are kind of cheating.  The Alto was the first machine of
any kind with an Ethernet interface, since Ethernet was invented as a
fast communication system for the Alto.  I suspect that if you dig for
it, you could find earlier machines with fast communications links.
And the multimicroprogramming is a dubious "first", since almost nobody
has copied it; it qualifies as peculiar rather than history-making.
-- 
"...the i860 is a wonderful source     | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
of thesis topics."    --Preston Briggs |  henry@zoo.toronto.edu   utzoo!henry