Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!cwjcc!mailrus!iuvax!bobmon
From: bobmon@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (RAMontante)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: 80x86 numbering (was: 80486)
Message-ID: <15892@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu>
Date: 18 Dec 88 16:59:05 GMT
Reply-To: bobmon@iuvax.UUCP (RAMontante)
Organization: malkaryotic
Lines: 20

rob@conexch.UUCP (Robert Collins) writes:
-In the latest (or one of the latest) issues of Microprocessor Report,
-says the '486 will have downloadable micro code, 	[...]

-of disbelief that much can be done other than speedups, I think
-downloadable microcode is lightyears more advanced than the '386.
                           ^^^^^^^^^^
You mean it's physically remote, or aimed at starry-eyed people? :-)

IBM made big bucks with downloadable microcode in their mainframes;
they kept the S/360 architecture alive for years after they got better
hardware, by emulating a 360 whenever a customer wanted to run an old
program.  Maybe not so fast, except for the fact the the new iron would
run so much faster than an original 360 anyway.

If the '486 can be re-microprogrammed, perhaps the 8080 will ride again!
(Or a 4004?  32-to-64 bit bus, 4-bit words, riiiiggghhhhttttttt.)
Or more radically, Intel can make a generic engine that it can program
as an 80x86 (for the obsolescence freaks), a 680x0 (for the
addressing-mode freaks), another S/360 (for the IBM freaks) . . .