Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!ames!sdcsvax!ucbvax!hoptoad!farren From: farren@hoptoad.UUCP Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc Subject: Re: Intel Microprocessors Message-ID: <2764@hoptoad.uucp> Date: Mon, 17-Aug-87 03:21:43 EDT Article-I.D.: hoptoad.2764 Posted: Mon Aug 17 03:21:43 1987 Date-Received: Tue, 18-Aug-87 01:53:57 EDT References: <1112@lznv.ATT.COM> <399@aucs.UUCP> <3225@cucca.columbia.edu> <892@looking.UUCP> <79@LBI.UUCP> Reply-To: farren@hoptoad.UUCP (Mike Farren) Organization: Nebula Consultants in San Francisco Lines: 53 In article <79@LBI.UUCP> bobc@LBI.UUCP (Robert Cain) writes: > > Clearly it is programmers, who generate the software, to dictate >what the hardware should architecture should and should not provide. Bull puckey. As one with 15 years of experience, half in hardware and half in software, I think this idea should slowly (no! quickly!) sink into the ooze and go away. It is VERY rare to find a software person who really understands the issues involved in hardware design, especially those involved in VLSI design. If you don't know the constraints, you can't make *effective* recommendations. > The one headache we could all have lived without, is segment registers, >and nothing Intel can say or do will ever change that fact. With the state of VLSI technology in 1975, I don't know that Intel had that many options. The 8086 was designed at a time when the microprocessor market was still miniscule. Some measure of 8080 compatibility was required due to the marketing issues involved. Segment registers allowed Intel to produce a chip that was a clear step ahead from the available chips, while still remaining well within the available VLSI fabrication capabilities of the time. > In fact IBM chose Intel because they were a good takeover target >at the time. Not because Intel had any handle on the marketplace at large. If Intel were a good takeover target, then why didn't IBM take them over? They've certainly shown little hesitation to do so with other companies that fell within their marketing requirements. Rolm, for example. > In one fell swoop, IBM released an inferior machine that became a >standard , and saved Intel from going broke. Aren't we forever greatful >to BIG BLUE. Justify this statement. I don't think you can. Intel may not have done as well as it has, but it's strengths across the entire product line would have pretty much assured that it didn't go broke. >Oh BIG BLUE if only you would have known the Frankinstein you created! Well, all in all, it seems to have been a pretty benign Frankenstein. Just ask the thousands (millions?) of people who have been, and are, using PCs, 8088 and all, to do real and productive work. THEY don't care whether it's an 8088, a 68000, or a Cray X-MP inside the box, just that it gets a job done. -- ---------------- "... if the church put in half the time on covetousness Mike Farren that it does on lust, this would be a better world ..." hoptoad!farren Garrison Keillor, "Lake Wobegon Days"