Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!littlei!intelisc!omepd!mcg
From: mcg@omepd (Steven McGeady)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Press Release: Intel announces 80960 architecture
Message-ID: <3384@omepd>
Date: 17 Apr 88 21:59:32 GMT
References: <3358@omepd> <953@ima.ISC.COM> <3376@omepd> <49681@sun.uucp>
Reply-To: mcg@iwarpo3.UUCP (Steve McGeady)
Organization: Intel Corp., Hillsboro
Lines: 26
Keywords: 80960, RISC, embedded control

In article <49681@sun.uucp> guy@gorodish.Sun.COM (Guy Harris) 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?
>
>Could the reason that the industry rags were under this delusion be that some
>of the people involved in the 432 were also involved in the '960 (Myers and
>Konrad Lai come to mind), and therefore (in typical ignorant industry-rag
>reporter fashion) assumed that one was derived from the other?

The industry rags did in fact get this wrong, but it probably had more to do
where *where* the development was happening.  Intel's Oregon Microcomputer
Engineering group was responsible for the 432.  That effort taught a lot
of people a lot of important things at many levels (from architecture to
circuit design) that were applied to the 80960.  But, apart from a
geographic and personnel lineage, it is difficult to trace the published
80960 architecture back to the 432.  Persons who see similarities between
the 80960KA, KB, and MC and the 432 are ignorant of the architectures of
one or the other.

Incidentally, Glen Myers wrote about the 432 when he worked for IBM.  The
432 effort was all but over by the time he joined Intel.

S. McGeady
Intel Corp.