Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!ll-xn!mit-eddie!uw-beaver!uw-june!pardo
From: pardo@june.cs.washington.edu (David Keppel)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Press Release: Intel announces 80960 architecture
Message-ID: <4678@june.cs.washington.edu>
Date: 14 Apr 88 04:36:18 GMT
References: <3358@omepd> <953@ima.ISC.COM>
Reply-To: pardo@uw-june.UUCP (David Keppel)
Organization: U of Washington, Computer Science, Seattle
Lines: 23
Keywords: 80960, RISC, embedded control

In article <953@ima.ISC.COM> marc@ima.UUCP (Marc Evans) writes:
>I remember a few years ago that Intel announced a processor called (I think)
>the 432...Now that I have read about this processor (80960) in some of the
>industry rags, as well as on the net, it seems to me that the 80960 is just
>a repackaged, supercharged version of the 432. Can anybody comment on this?

Yes.

Unless I'm missing some big stuff about the 80960, they are not at all
the same.

The 432 supported objects and capabilities in hardware.  Thus, the hardware
recognized and protected the specific data type of "access descriptor" and
encapsulated /refinement/ (essentially a suid on a capability).

The 80960 is just your generic modern microprocessor.

For more information on the 432, a description of capabilities, and a
comparison of various related architectures, see "Capability-Based
Computer Systems" by Henry M. Levy, (C) 1984 Digital Equipment Corp.,
printed by Digital Press.  (Gosh, I *knew* we could somehow force the
VAX into this discussion!)

	;-D on  ( But then again, I could be )  Pardo