Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!caen!hellgate.utah.edu!csn!kessner!david From: david@kessner.denver.co.us (David Kessner) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy Subject: Re: 8-bit death Message-ID: <1991May7.203322.3569@kessner.denver.co.us> Date: 7 May 91 20:33:22 GMT References: <165.tnews@ping.actrix.gen.nz> Organization: Kessner, Inc. Lines: 80 At last! Words of Windom! I just _had_ to reply to this one... In article <165.tnews@ping.actrix.gen.nz> ping@ping.actrix.gen.nz (Peter Ingham) writes: >These were commercial decisions taken by Intel in order to >provide backwards compatibility. Intel have continued to make similar >decisions since. Motorola, by way of contrast, chose to develop a _new_, >non-compatible path with 68000 when replacing the 6800 & 6809. Tis true, but which is the better choice? From the hardware/software aspect of it, clearly Motorola made the better chioce-- but Intel (and others like AMD, who make 286's, 386's etc) have probably made more money. > Yea. You and me, Buddy! >Architecturally, the 68000 series is far cleaner that 80xx6. This is >the price you pay for maintaining backwards compatibility. > >Without getting into a RISC/CISC argument here, the same thing applies. >if you ignore backwards compatibility, you can get a much cleaner >architecture, but you loose out (short-term) on application availability. More importantly, you loose out in (short-term) programming utilities, compilers, debuggers, etc. But oh well. Motorola clearly made the better design chioce early on, they were thinking about the future. Intel was thinking in the past, compatability. >Was MS-DOS a _copy_ of CP/M? NO. Thank you. >Was it designed to provide close to identical facilities? Yes >Does (did) it add significant new functionality over & above CP/M? No >Similar Functionality Spec, different implementation. Exactly! >While the arguments presented have made semi-interesting reading, I fail >to see the point here. > >What is an 8-bit O/S? - surely one that runs on an 8-bit CPU. I have >never seen MSDOS running on any 8-bit CPU. > >What is an 8-bit CPU? - surely one that uses 8-bits as the predominant >data-register size. (ie: a CPU that uses 16-bit registers 95% of the >time but can combine them to 32bits for some operations is a 16-bit CPU) Exactly. Perhapse Peter da Silva will figure that out sometime... >In a previous posting, Peter da Silva has been arguing that the >_facilites_ provided by an operating system define whether it is 8, 16 or >32 bit. This is patently false. It is however correct to state that >MS-DOS provides the *facilities* commonly associated with several O/S's >written for 8-bit systems. Clearly, he is talking about something else that does not have anything to do with the number of bits. >Is MS-DOS an Operating System?? Some would argue that it is in fact an >overgrown file handler, and little more. Ah, yes. But it is a 16 bit file handler/program loader! :) >There are also some very competent operating systems around for 80xx6. >. . . . . . . . >I think we all agree that MS-DOS is not one of these. > Peter S. Ingham ping@ping.actrix.gen.nz -- David Kessner - david@kessner.denver.co.us | do { 1135 Fairfax, Denver CO 80220 (303) 377-1801 (p.m.) | . . . If you cant flame MS-DOS, who can you flame? | } while( jones);