Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!mcsun!cernvax!chx400!chx400!bernina!neptune!inf.ethz.ch!brandis
From: brandis@inf.ethz.ch (Marc Brandis)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware
Subject: Re: Comparing 486 to 386 Systems
Message-ID: <27899@neptune.inf.ethz.ch>
Date: 8 Apr 91 12:08:20 GMT
References: <40409@netnews.upenn.edu> <1991Apr4.062503.1325@agate.berkeley.edu> <27865@neptune.inf.ethz.ch> <1991Apr6.191106.5863@cc.helsinki.fi>
Sender: news@neptune.inf.ethz.ch
Reply-To: brandis@inf.ethz.ch (Marc Brandis)
Organization: Departement Informatik, ETH, Zurich
Lines: 20

In article <1991Apr6.191106.5863@cc.helsinki.fi> torvalds@cc.helsinki.fi writes:
>In article <27865@neptune.inf.ethz.ch>, brandis@inf.ethz.ch (Marc Brandis) writes:
>  Fos a machine running just dos, the only NOTABLE difference between
>ANY x86 is speed, so there you could use a 8088 at 500MHz if they made
>them. For anything else (read unix, windows, etc) you want a 386 or a
>486 (yes I'm oversimplifying). The 286 just won't cut it.
>

That was exactly my point. As far as I remember the original question was about
a system to run DOS. With Windows you get the benefits of VM86 and of the 
paging unit, but not of the 32-bit architecture (and I do not think that the
advantage of Windows in enhanced (speak 386) mode vs. Windows in standard
(speak 286) mode is as large as the advantage of Windows in standard mode vs.
Windows in real (speak 8086) mode. For UNIX, I could not agree with you more.


Marc-Michael Brandis
Computer Systems Laboratory, ETH-Zentrum (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology)
CH-8092 Zurich, Switzerland
email: brandis@inf.ethz.ch