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From: agr@vaxine.UUCP (Arnold Reinhold)
Newsgroups: net.micro.68k
Subject: 68020 vs. 16k
Message-ID: <156@vaxine.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 13-Jan-84 11:37:50 EST
Article-I.D.: vaxine.156
Posted: Fri Jan 13 11:37:50 1984
Date-Received: Sat, 14-Jan-84 03:16:25 EST
Organization: Automatix Inc., Billerica, MA
Lines: 20

Some thoughts on the 68k vs 16k debate:

Had Motorola waited until it had enough microcode space to do the 68000 right,
a lot of us would be using 8086's now.  I would be more interested in hearing
the merits of the 68020 debated relative to the 16k series.  The 16k
still has a more elegant instruction set, but some of the worst blunders in
the 68k -- no long pc relative displacements, no 32 x 32  multply -- are
to be fixed. Floating point is still a ways off. However, some people are
apparently using the National fp chip with the 68k.  Motorola is planning a
demand paged mmu but it is a year behind the 68020. My best info suggests
initial 68020 samples this summer or fall.

I would be interested in other comments and rumors about how well Motorola has
patched the 68000's flaws in the 68020 and about using the National fpu with
the 68k series.

Arnold Reinhold
Automatix Inc.
Billerica, MA 01821
617 667 7900