Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!stanford.edu!neon.Stanford.EDU!torrie From: torrie@cs.stanford.edu (Evan Torrie) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy Subject: The 68050 - end of the 680x0? (was Re: The Amiga's Future) Message-ID: <1991Jun10.072945.8821@neon.Stanford.EDU> Date: 10 Jun 91 07:29:45 GMT References: <5068@orbit.cts.com> <16647@darkstar.ucsc.edu> <1308@cbmger.UUCP><28@ryptyde.UUCP> <01dH!cmr@cs.psu.edu> Sender: torrie@neon.Stanford.EDU (Evan James Torrie) Organization: Computer Science Department, Stanford University, Ca , USA Lines: 37 melling@cs.psu.edu (Michael D Mellinger) writes: >blitter to your computer). The 50MHz 040 is due in 1Q 92. The >article also says that the 68050 will be available sometime next year. >It will double the performance of the 040 at the same clock speed. Actually, reading between the lines, this announcement sounds like the beginning of the end for the 680x0 line. The article says that the '050 will be an evolutionary upgrade, using just improved process fabrication and a few small architectural changes to get its increased speed. All in all, it sounds very much like the situation with the 68030 vs 68020 - claimed "double the performance" with an evolutionary upgrade, which actually ended up with only 25-30% improvement. Why do I see this as the beginning of the end? Well, by all accounts, Intel's 80586 will be as revolutionary a chip from the 486 as the 386 was from the 286. Reports of an i860 on board, superscalar processing etc seem to dominate any discussion of the 586. If Motorola is just planning an evolutionary upgrade for the 050, I can't see how this is going to compete head-to-head with the 586. My guess is that Motorola has been told by its major 68030/040 users that they're ready to switch away from the 680x0 family [e.g. NeXT, Apple with possibly the 88K, HP with their own PA RISC] for their high-end products, and so Motorola is not putting too much effort into designing high-end follow-ups to the 68040. What do you think? Will the 68050 be the last high-end member of the 680x0 line? -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Evan Torrie. Stanford University, Class of 199? torrie@cs.stanford.edu "If it weren't for your gumboots, where would you be? You'd be in the hospital, or in-firm-ary..." F. Dagg