Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wuarchive!uunet!sunquest!venus.sunquest.com!terry
From: terry@venus.sunquest.com (Terry R. Friedrichsen)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Anything wrong with the i860
Summary: how the family will evolve
Keywords: intel marketroids i860 evolution
Message-ID: <19246@sunquest.UUCP>
Date: 13 May 91 18:28:20 GMT
Sender: news@sunquest.UUCP
Followup-To: comp.arch
Distribution: usa
Organization: Sunquest Information Systems, Tucson
Lines: 38

paul@taniwha.UUCP (Paul Campbell) writes:
>yoshio@maui.cs.ucla.edu (Yoshio Turner) writes:
>> ... an updated i860 will be announced in
>>"a couple months" that addresses this [memory bandwidth] problem.

>Oh great !-( - I can just see it - the engineers put a 128 bit bus on
>the thing to get the system performance up and the Intel marketting
>people blaze out with "Intel releases the first 128 bit micro"
>(remember you saw it here first :-)

OK, let's look a year or two into the future:

The new chip (i870?) will only cost about 6 times what it ought to.
However, you will be able to bring this down to 3 times what it ought
to cost by purchasing a crippled version of the chip (i870SX) which
multiplexes the 128-pin bus onto the lower 64 pins.

Then, for just 150% of the cost of the original i870, you will be able
to buy an i871 co-processor chip.  This will be nothing more than an i870
with "i871" printed on the outside, which fits into a socket alongside the
crippled i870SX and disables it, restoring the 128-pin bus capability of
your machine.

Thus, Intel will once again give the customer what he wants (can you guess
what that is?).

End of trip to the future.  (If you think this sounds a lot like a
current Intel processor's evolution, by golly, you're right!)

Oh, what I would give to have the whole planet just say "NO" to the i586 ...

Terry R. Friedrichsen

terry@venus.sunquest.com  (Internet)
uunet!sunquest!terry	  (Usenet)
terry@sds.sdsc.edu        (alternate address; I live in Tucson)

Quote:  "Do, or do not.  There is no 'try'." - Yoda, The Empire Strikes Back