omahony@cs.tcd.ie (Donal O'Mahony - OMAHONY@cs.tcd.ie) (08/22/88)
In article <162@bach@kulesat.uucp>, lily@kulesat.uucp writes: > > Does anyone out there have any experience in replacing an Intel > 8086 processor by another in a PC-clone (Schneider in my case). > > At the local computer-store they told me that with the 8086 replaced > by a V30 (or something..) my computer would run faster, at 100% > compatibility. I use dBaseIII+ and Clipper a lot, and I am worried > that the software will have to be updated. I too am considering using a V30 in an Amstrad PC. The ads in BYTE for V20/V30 claim a 10-40% speedup. I presume that these processors execute some instructions faster than their Intel counterparts. Can some knowledgeable person say what the instructions are ? Are there any serious incompatibilies? _______________________________________________________________________ Donal O'Mahony omahony@cs.tcd.ie Computer Science Dept., Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland _______________________________________________________________________
med@druhi.ATT.COM (Myron Drapal) (08/29/88)
In article <9522@cs.tcd.ie>, omahony@cs.tcd.ie (Donal O'Mahony - OMAHONY@cs.tcd.ie) writes: > In article <162@bach@kulesat.uucp>, lily@kulesat.uucp writes: > > > > Does anyone out there have any experience in replacing an Intel > > 8086 processor by another in a PC-clone (Schneider in my case). > > > I too am considering using a V30 in an Amstrad PC. The ads in BYTE for > V20/V30 claim a 10-40% speedup. I presume that these processors > execute some instructions faster than their Intel counterparts. > Can some knowledgeable person say what the instructions are ? > > Are there any serious incompatibilies? > > _______________________________________________________________________ > Donal O'Mahony omahony@cs.tcd.ie > Computer Science Dept., Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland > _______________________________________________________________________ Absolutely none. I'm writing this article on an Amstrad 1512 with the 8086 replaced with a V30. Absolutely no problems. In fact, I've replaced the DOS with the AT&T version for the 6300 (V3.2), and the only problem I've had is the real-time clock. I just wrote a simple patch program to fix that. I switched to AT&T 6300 DOS because I needed to add a 3.5 inch floppy, and the DOS provided by Amstrad doesn't work properly (e.g. driver.sys doesn't work as advertised). Back to the V30... Noticed about a 30% improvement when I changed it. With the recent posting regarding changing the refresh timing, I get the same Norton SI as the AT&T 6300... Myron Drapal AT&T Bell Laboratories Denver att!druhi!med
tom@vrdxhq.UUCP (Tom Welsh) (08/30/88)
I put a NEC V30 in my Compaq Deskpro (XT clone) about two years
ago.
I have roughly measured about a 5-10% increase in speed (remember,
disk times are still the killers for a lot of software)
I have run the following over the past two years with absolutely
no problems:
Microsoft C 4.0
MASM 4.0
Turbo Pascal
Wordstar
Word Perfect
Multimate
Voced
PLM-86
ASM-86
LINK86
Supercalc
Lotus
lots of games
Kermit
Crosstalk
PKARC
PKXARC
and more I can't remember
.aad@stpstn.UUCP (Anthony A. Datri) (09/02/88)
My question is: Do I have to replace an 8088 with a V20, or can I replace an 8088 with a V30? (real XT's running Novell stuff)\ -- @disclaimer(Any concepts or opinions above are entirely mine, not those of my employer, my GIGI, or my 11/34) beak is beak is not Anthony A. Datri,SysAdmin,StepstoneCorporation,stpstn!aad
bradd@gssc.UUCP (Brad Davis) (09/03/88)
In article <162@bach@kulesat.uucp>, lily@kulesat.uucp writes: > > Does anyone out there have any experience in replacing an Intel > 8086 processor by another in a PC-clone (Schneider in my case). > I've had a V30 in my AT&T 6300 for a year or two (time flies...) and never had any problems. I just added an 8087 and it appears to work, though I haven't used it much yet. In article <9522@cs.tcd.ie> omahony@cs.tcd.ie (Donal O'Mahony) writes: > >I too am considering using a V30 in an Amstrad PC. The ads in BYTE for >V20/V30 claim a 10-40% speedup. I presume that these processors >execute some instructions faster than their Intel counterparts. >Can some knowledgeable person say what the instructions are ? > The V30 understands the 8086 opcodes, the 80186 extensions, and a couple of Vx0-specific instructions. It is measurably (probably 10%) faster than the 8086 overall, but there are a few areas where the NEC chips are very much faster, and it was no doubt these that gave rise to the 40% figure and to some of the massively distorted Norton benchmark numbers. I don't know precisely what these instructions are, but I'll give you good odds that DIV, IDIV, MUL and IMUL are among them. That and effective address calculation delays seem to be the worst problems of the 808x, and hence where NEC could make the biggest improvements. You can set a bit in a register somewhere and the V30 will emulate an 8080 instead (I haven't used this but I hope to some day). I believe that this is probably what hangs some programs: if you muck with flag bits that Intel marked as reserved, you might find yourself in 8080 mode. And since the 8080 isn't compatible with the 8086, you are dead. And of course you will throw off delay-loop oriented software because you are faster than the XT you appear to be. But with an 8086 you are in that boat already thanks to the faster 16-bit bus. Verdict: makes games tougher, but if you really want to speed up your system, it is ABSOLUTELY THE BEST PERFORMANCE BUY IN EXISTANCE. Brad Davis ====== ====== ====== US MAIL: 9590 SW Gemini Dr. == == == Beaverton, OR 97005 == == == == == == PHONE: (503) 641-2200 == == == == UUCP: uunet!tektronix!sequent!gssc!bradd ====== ====== ====== Disclaimer: I'm a mushroom. Graphic Software Systems "Practice safe computing. Wear a write-protect tab."
pjh@mccc.UUCP (Pete Holsberg) (09/04/88)
You cannot replace an 8088 (8-bit data bus) with a V-30 (16-bit data bus).
Pete Holsberg UUCP: {...!rutgers!}princeton!mccc!pjh
Technology Division ...!att!jonlab!mccc!pjh
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