Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!oakhill!motaus!phil
From: phil@motaus.sps.mot.com (Phil Brownfield)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Historical architectural advances??
Message-ID: <1990Oct13.200414.3523@motaus.sps.mot.com>
Date: 13 Oct 90 20:04:14 GMT
References: <8139@scolex.sco.COM> <1990Oct13.035313.174@ingres.Ingres.COM>
Organization: Motorola Semiconductor, Austin
Lines: 24

In article <1990Oct13.035313.174@ingres.Ingres.COM> jpk@ingres.com (Jon Krueger) writes:
>
>Micros have an impressive history of performance improvements.  Their
>architectures, however, are better termed retreats than advances.  They
>skimped on address bits.  And committed other abominations.
>
>VAX processor speed wasn't impressive.  Ever.  Its large flat virtual
>address spaces were.  Particularly ten years ago and for a price that
>departments could afford.  For that reason it could be considered an
>architectural advance.

The MC68000 supports a 16MB linear address map.  It has 8 32-bit
address registers (as well as 8 32-bit data registers), and all
address calculations are 32-bit precision.  It was introduced in
1979.  It is generally conceded that the 8Mhz MC68000, which went
into production in '81, is around 0.8 VUPS.

Just to refresh your memory. :-)

--
Phil Brownfield         | In America, anyone can become president. It's
phil@motaus.sps.mot.com | one of the risks we take. - Adlai E. Stevenson
{cs.utexas.edu!oakhill, mcdchg}!motaus!phil
speaking for myself, not my employer