dana@bilbo.locus (Dana Myers) (03/31/89)
Ok, already, stop flaming the 286! What's the point? If you care about selling Unix, you need to swallow your pride and sell where you can. A lot of folks have AT class machines, and each and every one of these people present a potential Unix installation, despite the fact that the 286 is not optimum or pretty. The 80286 was designed by people who liked Multics and figured they would make the perfect microprocessor to run Multics on. So, Multics was designed 20 years ago... so what? ;-) The above info about 286 and Multics was related by an Intel person who should know. So stop sniveling! :-) Dana H. Myers Locus Computing Corp. Inglewood, CA bilbo.dana@seas.ucla.edu
john@frog.UUCP (John Woods) (04/02/89)
In article <18878@adm.BRL.MIL>, dana@bilbo.locus (Dana Myers) writes: > The 80286 was designed by people who liked Multics and figured they would > make the perfect microprocessor to run Multics on. These people were doing some really heavy-duty drugs at the time, right? Or were they just inhaling raw gasoline? >So, Multics was designed 20 years ago... so what? ;-) And it is still the state of the art that everyone pats themselves on the back for reinventing, piecemeal and badly... -- John Woods, Charles River Data Systems, Framingham MA, (508) 626-1101 ...!decvax!frog!john, john@frog.UUCP, ...!mit-eddie!jfw, jfw@eddie.mit.edu Remainder Khomeini!
phil@Apple.COM (Phil Ronzone) (04/08/89)
In article <1188@frog.UUCP> john@frog.UUCP (John Woods) writes: >In article <18878@adm.BRL.MIL>, dana@bilbo.locus (Dana Myers) writes: >> The 80286 was designed by people who liked Multics and figured they would >> make the perfect microprocessor to run Multics on. > >These people were doing some really heavy-duty drugs at the time, right? >Or were they just inhaling raw gasoline? I worked for Bill Pohlman, known as the father of the 286, after he left Intel. We discussed how the whole xxx86 architecture came about. To be overly brief, the xxx86 architecture started as a stopgap. Intel believed the 432 was the wave of the future, yet the Intel salesman were VERY worried that that the Zilog Z8000 would kill Intel before Intel could get a real 432 chip set out the door (remember what the Z80 did to the 8080?). Anyway, the whole xxx86 was subject to severe constraints to keep it from being "too good" and competing with the 432 (no floating point plans etc.). To keep the xxx86 alive, it was touted as an upgrade path for those old 8080 customers, who were eventually switch to to the 432. Bill mentioned that the 8088 was done almost as an afterthought, and was almost cancelled several times. Bill also has an unpublished paper titled "Why the father of the 80286 thinks the Motorola 68000 is better", but it remains unpublished because Bill didn't want to burn any bridges at Intel. Last I heard, he was back at Intel in Paris. +------------------------+-----------------------+----------------------------+ | Philip K. Ronzone | A/UX System Architect | APPLELINK: RONZONE1 | | Apple Computer MS 27AJ +-----------------------+----------------------------+ | 10500 N. DeAnza Blvd. | Computer viruses don't cause security problems, | | Cupertino CA 95014 | computer programmers do ... | +------------------------+----------------------------------------------------+ |{amdahl,decwrl,sun,voder,nsc,mtxinu,dual,unisoft}!apple!phil | +-----------------------------------------------------------------------------+