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From: dave@micropen (David F. Carlson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Intel Microprocessors
Message-ID: <370@micropen>
Date: Wed, 12-Aug-87 08:39:52 EDT
Article-I.D.: micropen.370
Posted: Wed Aug 12 08:39:52 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 14-Aug-87 05:38:21 EDT
References: <1112@lznv.ATT.COM> <399@aucs.UUCP> <3225@cucca.columbia.edu> <789@unccvax.UUCP>
Organization: Micropen Direct Writing Systems, Pittsford, NY
Lines: 37
Summary: sarcasm sucks

In article <789@unccvax.UUCP>, cbenda@unccvax.UUCP (carl m benda) writes:
> In article <234@etn-rad.UUCP>, jru@etn-rad.UUCP (John Unekis) writes:
> > In article <880@bdmrrr.bdm.com> davis@bdmrrr.bdm.com (Arthur Davis x4675) writes:
> > 	make use of their opportunity to escape from the Intel tar pit
> > 	and use the MC68020 to make the PS/2 into a REAL computer?
> > 
> 
> Well John, can you say memory management?  Why is it that a 4 meg Mac
... more spate on how much people like Intel over Motorola omitted ...
> 
> /Carl
> ...decvax!mcnc!unccvax!cbenda

Carl, sarcasm sucks.  First of all, Intel chose segmented architechure for
the 8086/8088 before the 80286 with its memory management was more than a
glimmer in a designer's eye.  It has been my opinion that Intel hoped to
capitalize from their successful 8080/5 CP/M-running processors with a 16-
bit model that the market seemed to require.  At the time no one could even
imagine why anyone would *ever* need more than 64K on a microcomputer.  
People could use bank switched memory if they did.  That was CP/M and the
market as it was in the late seventies.  So Intel makes an upgrade from the
eight bit world but the expense of maintaining instruction set compatibility
was too great, (as it was from the 680X to the 680X0 for Motorola).  Thus,
a chip that allowed 256K direct addressing (with CS DS SS ES) seemed like
a good compromise:  256K was still more memory than anyone would ever need.


To tell anyone that "computer engineers" prefer Intel over Motorola is a
very silly thing indeed.  There has been in my knowledge of the market no
person on the software side of the world that "prefers" a segmented space
to a linear space.  (Although some old PDP persons might argue...)

-- 
David F. Carlson, Micropen, Inc.
...!{seismo}!rochester!ur-valhalla!micropen!dave

"The faster I go, the behinder I get." --Lewis Carroll