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From: toddpw@tybalt.caltech.edu (Todd P. Whitesel)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple
Subject: Re: 20 Mhz 65816
Message-ID: <1990Feb28.232226.7137@spectre.ccsf.caltech.edu>
Date: 28 Feb 90 23:22:26 GMT
References: <10393.infoapple.net@pro-generic>
Sender: news@spectre.ccsf.caltech.edu
Organization: California Institute of Technology
Lines: 34

sb@pro-generic.cts.com (Stephen Brown) writes:

[ he's seen confirmed existence of the chip ]

>THERE IS NOW *** NO EXCUSE *** FOR APPLE TO COMPLAIN THAT THEY CANNOT GET
>PARTS.  Mensch's alleged 12 Mhz 65816's, shown at AppleFest, with which he
>used to burn Gassee, were and are in extremely short supply because he cannot
>get them working right.  It is well known that Western Digital's 65816's have
>problems running all instructions at high speed.  When asked about this, Tony
>assured me that his chips DO NOT share this anomaly.

This is because Mensch's design is, to be honest, microcoded, and he's had
problems because you can't just shrink the circuit like he's trying to do
because of scaling problems that occur at about the 1 micron level (according
to people who know more than I do about this stuff, all I've done was a
photolithographed inverter).

The ASIC enterprises design is what I always knew would be possible: a true
state machine. Our CPU is that simple, folks. And since the design (even
Mensch's, actually) is small enough to fit on a high-density gate array,
the chip can be manufactured using _industry_standard_technology_ which
explains the instant availability of reliable high volume production.

>Sales of the Apple IIGS have now dropped to a critically dangerous level.
>Apple must do something NOW. Not tomorrow, not next week, NOW.  The Apple IIGS
>will be  D E A D  if they don't. And the promise of "Apple II Forever" won't
>be worth "didley" if no one is buying Apple II's.

This is precisely correct, as will be stated explicitly in the next rewrite
of "The Apple //f" to be posted shortly (I have to remove the flaming and
clarify it a bit).

Todd Whitesel
toddpw @ tybalt.caltech.edu