Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uwm.edu!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!excelan!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen
From: davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.COM (Wm E Davidsen Jr)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: IBM PC prehistory
Message-ID: <2003@crdos1.crd.ge.COM>
Date: 11 Jan 90 13:31:51 GMT
References: <1576@aber-cs.UUCP>
Reply-To: davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.com (bill davidsen)
Organization: GE Corp R&D Center, Schenectady NY
Lines: 19

In article <1576@aber-cs.UUCP> pcg@cs.aber.ac.uk (Piercarlo Grandi) writes:

| The more incredible thing is not only that all the 386 running
| DOS out there are essentially emulating an 8080 on steroids,
| and thus don't ussually bother to use the MMU, but that even
| Unix does not really take advantage of the Multics like
| features of the 286/386 MMU at all, using the 286/386 as either
| a glorified PDP or VAX.

  I talked with David {can't remember} at Honeywell late last year, and
he said that Multics "could probably" be ported to the 386, and guessed
four man-yr to do it. I suspect that this will never be done, and it's a
shame. Most of Multics would run nicely with four rings instead of
eight, except (I believe) the debugger)?
-- 
bill davidsen	(davidsen@crdos1.crd.GE.COM -or- uunet!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen)

"I'm a left-handed vegitarian, and my hobbies are judo and the number three"
                                     Babs Wilcox, _Don't Get Even, Get Odd_