Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site brl-tgr.ARPA Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!bonnie!akgua!whuxlm!harpo!decvax!genrad!panda!talcott!harvard!seismo!brl-tgr!tgr!FRANK@sri-vax.ARPA From: FRANK@sri-vax.ARPA (Victor Frank) Newsgroups: net.micro Subject: ANOTHER 32-BIT MACHINE??? Message-ID: <9254@brl-tgr.ARPA> Date: Fri, 15-Mar-85 14:54:03 EST Article-I.D.: brl-tgr.9254 Posted: Fri Mar 15 14:54:03 1985 Date-Received: Sun, 17-Mar-85 06:08:22 EST Sender: news@brl-tgr.ARPA Lines: 67 ROOM FOR ANOTHER 32-BIT CPU? I have followed with great interest the debates between Henry Spencer (henry@utzoo), Richard Mateosian (National), and others at National and Motorola on the relative (dis)advantages of National's and Motorola's 32-bit CPUs. Now I read in March 1 Electronics Products (pg 25) that Hitachi is working on a general purpose 1.3 um, CMOS 32-bit microprocessor with 5 MIPs operation and full 32 bit address and data. The 6.5 X 9 mm chip is said to contain more than 300,000 transistors, proprietary pipelined architecture, high cache memory, a 200 kbit ROM with 50 ns cycle time and a 32-bit ALU. The article (by Barbara Tuck) says that Hitachi's Micro 32 will probably not be a real product until late 1986, and that Hitachi is doing extensive market research before defining the architecture and operating characteristics. The article mentions 3 options open to Hitachi: 1. Make it compatible with the 68000 (subject to Motorola's OK) 2. Make it compatible with the 68020 (subject to Motorola's OK) 3. Use a proprietary architecture (a very real possibility). On the horizon or already (not)available are proprietary chips from HP, AT&T, and others??? Zilog and Intel have announced 32 bit cpus that will eventually be available to the public. NCR has the 32000, maybe Fairchild, Texas Instruments will be in there too. My question. By early 1987, will there be any market for another 32 bit chip? With yet another instruction set? I suspect that four different basic chip types (National, Motorola, Zilog, & Intel) are plenty! I just wish these chip manufacturers learn something from the 16-bit battlefield: 1. Time is money 2. The best is not always chosen 3. However, the first is not always chosen either 4. Without software, your product is crippled 5. If you want to restrict distribution/information on your device, you'd better be able to build, sell, & service your own computers & write the software too 6. Before IBM came out with the PC, Intel was giving away 8088s to engineers. Hobbyists were using them. There were magazine articles using them. I think that was an investment that paid off! 7. 32 programamers/engineers working on a problem for one month does not equal one programmer/engineer working for 32 months--but then who can wait 32 months (or even 12 months) in this business. My opinion is that Motorola's instruction set is pretty neat, and National's is probably not far behind. These guys at Hitachi would have to go a long ways to improve on them. By 1987 they may be out in the cold with a proprietary architecture. If they are pin-for-pin and instruction-for- instruction compatible with either the 68020 or the 32532 they might have a prosperous future. They could probably survive with an IBM 370 or VAX-11 instruction set too, but not in the same market. I trust that there are representatives of the major CPU manufacturers on the net. Am I premature in concluding that the 32-bit race has already been won (by Motorola and National)? Come on, AMD, Fairchild, TI, Zilog, NCR & Intel, let's hear your side!!! Victor Frank, Editor 68796 Hacker's Newsletter ------