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From: kim@mips.UUCP (Kim DeVaughn)
Newsgroups: net.micro,net.micro.pc
Subject: Re: Has anyone seen the following advertisement?
Message-ID: <268@mips.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 16-Dec-85 15:10:07 EST
Article-I.D.: mips.268
Posted: Mon Dec 16 15:10:07 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 18-Dec-85 04:56:25 EST
References: <457@eneevax.UUCP>
Organization: mips ... where RISC is a way of life
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Xref: watmath net.micro:13113 net.micro.pc:6251

> I found the following ad. in local (Wash. D.C.) BBS.  I was wondering if
> anybody had heard of this.  I am kind of skeptical and am assuming it is
> another ripoff, but I just wanted to make sure.
> 
> >No, this is no joke.  For $40, plus $1.50 s&h, you get your choice
> > ...
> >These chips are full 8088/86 clones, except they have been highly
> >enhanced  internally, resulting in throughput enhancement from 5 to
> >100%.  It works on  Compaqs, IBM's & Clones and have yet to find
> > ...
> >1) Dedicated effective address calc hardware which does it's job in
> >   2 clock cycles, versus 5-12 for Intel.
> >2) Dual internal bus, versus single.
> > ...
> If anybody has heard of it, please post to usenet since I am sure everyone
> is interested.

What's being described here is the NEC V30 and V20 chips (8086 and 8088
compatible respectively).  Though the performance increase varies with
the application (nearly none for mostly arithmetic applications to over
40% for string-op intensive ones), they do work well.  I have a Fujitsu
u-16s, 8MHz machine, and replaced the 8086 with a V30;  I'd estimate the
aggregate performance increase to be in the 15%-20% range.

There has been considerable discussion on these chips in "net.micro.pc"
over the last couple of months.  There is also an EXCELLENT article (part
1 of 2 parts) in the 5th issue of Micro/Systems Journal.

I'm a bit surprised by the price ... JDR (JRD?) Electronics has been
advertising V20's in the back pages of Byte magazine for about half the
price that you mentioned for several issues now.  I picked up my 8MHz,
ceramic, V30 for $20.10 (+ tax) at a local distributor.

If you decide to install one of these chips, get an 8MHz part as there
*could* be a slight problem with the clock duty-cycle on the 5MHz part.

/kim

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