Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ukma!xanth!mcnc!rti!bcw
From: bcw@rti.UUCP (Bruce Wright)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Xerox sues Apple!!!
Summary: 68xxx is a nicer processor ...
Message-ID: <3368@rti.UUCP>
Date: 27 Dec 89 22:45:56 GMT
References: <6767@tank.uchicago.edu> <1989Dec17.112127.27333@me.toronto.edu> <624@bogart.UUCP>
Organization: Research Triangle Institute, RTP, NC
Lines: 45

In article <624@bogart.UUCP>, jerry@polygen.uucp (Jerry Shekhel) writes:
> In article <10457@bsu-cs.bsu.edu> mithomas@bsu-cs.UUCP (Michael Thomas Niehaus) writes:
> >
> >   The 80286/80386/80486 are all in the same league as the 68000/68020/68030.
> >   Each will serve the purpose.  So unless you are a processor designer, let's
>     ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> >   stay away from this argument.
> >
> 
> ABSOLUTELY!!!  I can't stand it when people turn a software argument into
> a processor/hardware argument.  I can't stand it when people worship
> Motorola for creating the 68000 and bash on Intel for making the 80286.  The
> arguments make it sound like Intel chips are INCAPABLE of running something
> like MacOS.  This is BULLSHIT!  EACH PROCESSOR WILL SERVE THE PURPOSE!

I think anyone who looks at the two processor families objectively will
have to agree that the 68000 family is a better architecture.  It's
certainly not perfect (maybe it should be more RISC-like, maybe it
shouldn't have the two different types of registers, etc), but it is
certainly better than the 80x86 family (8 equally inconvenient registers),
though 80386 is a significant improvement (still a somewhat warped
architecture, though).  The 68k has always had a linear address space,
which can be a great help compared to the 80x86's 64k segments (I'm not
sure that segmented architectures are always bad, but the segments need
to be at least 16M before they are large enough that you aren't always
tripping over them ... even then, some applications may be awkward on a
segmented machine).  Arguments about processor speed tend to be arguments
about levels of semiconductor technology, not arguments about processor
architecture.  There's a big difference (although there can be some 
differences in how efficiently a particular architecture can be 
implemented).

On the other hand, this certainly doesn't mean that all software for
the 68k is great or that all software for the 80x86 is bad.  It also
doesn't mean that the decision to build the PC on the 80x86 was bad at
the time - the 68k had hardly any support chips when the PC was originally
built;  and it doesn't mean that there aren't some nice things about the
PC's layout.

What microprocessor programming I do is mostly on PC's rather than on Mac's
(most of my work is on minicomputers), but so far as I'm concerned this is
a purely mercenary viewpoint:  around here it's what pays.  Period.  Both
systems have good and bad points, *taken as a whole*.

						Bruce C. Wright