meuchen@grad2.cis.upenn.edu (Paul Eric Menchen) (12/18/89)
In article <14960@boulder.Colorado.EDU> kuo@boulder.Colorado.EDU (KUO ANDY Y) writes: lots of stuff deleted > > It is a fact that NuBus, SCSI, AppleTalk, 68xxx chip is superior than >EISA/MCA, ESDI, nothing standard or build in, 80xxx(not include 80486). > Why not include the 80486. From what I here, the 68040 is plenty faster. I don't remember the specifics - as a matter of fact I don't think the specs are out but word is it's faster. Paul Eric Menchen meuchen@grad1.cis.upenn.edu
davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.COM (Wm E Davidsen Jr) (12/18/89)
In article <18213@netnews.upenn.edu> meuchen@grad2.cis.upenn.edu (Paul Eric Menchen) writes: | Why not include the 80486. From what I here, the 68040 is plenty | faster. I don't remember the specifics - as a matter of fact I don't | think the specs are out but word is it's faster. I think it's early to say what the performance, cost, or reliability of the 040 are. For that matter I don't think we really know what the 486 will be, other than a lot faster next year (supposedly the 50MHz version will ship in 1990). Certainly the 486 seems a lot more developed in terms of available machines which use it. Does the 040 have the FPU built in? I'm told the memory manager is there, but I have heard nothing reliable on the 040. And the leaked performance figures have all been at 33 or 40MHz, so they are not only possibly inaccurate, but need to be scaled somehow, too. I doubt that either chip will push the other off the market, and I would bet that the 486 will sell a lot more units because of the demand for fast DOS machines. This will bring down the cost of manufacture, although I wouldn't bet on either Intel or Motorola dropping prices a lot. Note I haven't said one was better than the other... -- bill davidsen (davidsen@crdos1.crd.GE.COM -or- uunet!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen) "The world is filled with fools. They blindly follow their so-called 'reason' in the face of the church and common sense. Any fool can see that the world is flat!" - anon
rob@prism.TMC.COM (12/19/89)
>Why not include the 80486. From what I here, the 68040 is plenty >faster. I don't remember the specifics - as a matter of fact I don't >think the specs are out but word is it's faster. I'd be interested to know where you heard this. As you said, information on the 68040 is very scarce, but most of what I've heard suggests that its integer performance will be comparable to that of the the 80486, though its FPU, supposedly of a Weitek-like design, may offer an advantage. The cynic in me is reminded of the claims that preceded the release of the 68030 a couple of years ago. The 68030 was supposed to be two, four, maybe ten times faster than the 80386, depending on which rumor you believed. Whatever the 68030's merits, which are many, it's safe to say that it didn't live up to its advance billing in this regard. Anyone remember a rumor that floated around about 2 years ago to the effect that the 68040 would be a 64-bit CPU incorporating hardware emulation of the 80286 instruction set? Or that the 80486 would have user-programmable microcode? Too bad more of these predictions don't come true.
rob@prism.TMC.COM (12/19/89)
> Does the 040 have the FPU built in? I'm told the memory manager is >there, but I have heard nothing reliable on the 040. My understanding, based on what little information there is, is that the 68040 will have a built in FPU that is similar to the Weitek 3167. That is, it will do simple operations (add, subtract, multiply, divide, loads, compares) very quickly in hardware, while relying on software handlers to execute more complex instructions like transcendentals. Of course, until about a year ago, the 80486 FPU was rumored to be of such a design, too. In reality, the 486's FPU is, except for speed improvements, mostly unchanged from the 80387.