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From: hes@ecsvax.UUCP (Henry Schaffer)
Newsgroups: net.micro.pc,net.arch
Subject: IBM RT PC - Open-ness
Message-ID: <1181@ecsvax.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 12-Feb-86 12:07:17 EST
Article-I.D.: ecsvax.1181
Posted: Wed Feb 12 12:07:17 1986
Date-Received: Fri, 14-Feb-86 03:31:52 EST
Distribution: net
Organization: NC State Univ.
Lines: 27
Xref: watmath net.micro.pc:6938 net.arch:2510

<>I was looking through the IBM January 21, 1986 Announcement
Letters for the RT PC, and was particularly interested in the
cpu.  "The system processor has a 32 bit, reduced intstruction
set computer architecture, developed by IBM on a single chip
                           ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
using 2-micron FET technology.  It has sixteen 32-bit general
purpose registers and uses 32-bit addresses and data paths.  The
microprocessor is controlled by 118 simple 2- and 4-byte
instructions.  An IBM-developed advanced memory management chip
                  ^^^^^^^^^^^^^
provides virtual memory address translation functions and 
memory control.  It provides a 40-bit (1 terabyte) virtual
address."  (^^^^emphasis added)

  I didn't see anything in the announcement about availability
of these chips by themselves.  If these chips are not
available, it might be very difficult (impossible?) for
competitors to build directly competitive machines - they would
be limited to supplying add-on boards.  This is quite a 
difference from the present situation with the 8088 and 80286
based micros, because of the use of an available cpu chip.

  Of course in the good old days every computer had a 
proprietary instruction set - have we come to expect a
different situation?

--henry schaffer