underdog@portia.Stanford.EDU (Dwight Joe) (04/09/90)
>In article <261C10AF.25747@maccs.dcss.mcmaster.ca> cs4g6aw@maccs.dcss.mcmaster.ca (Amos Yung) writes: | |This is the case throughout the entire [American] computer |industry. When you really |comes to think about it, it is crystal clear that the best way to protect |your market share, at least short term, is through marketing scheme. Not |by technological innovation. Look at Lotus, DBase... all of them are involved |in some sort of legal battle to protect their "intellectual right". It is |easier to get result by paying your lawyer than to the R&D department. | You are being too harsh on the American computer industry. Intel and Motorola are outstanding competitors. The 80x86 and the 680x0 processors have the lion's share of the PC and low-end workstation market. Also, consider Apple, MIPs, and Sun are outstanding companies with good products. If emulation is the sincerest form of flattery, then I would say that even the Japanese think that the U.S.A. still has a competitive computer industry. Just ask Fujitsu who is mass-producing the Sparc chip. Ask Sony who recently produced a workstation using the 680x0. What you are referring to is software. Frankly, I haven't seen all that much software that is "Made In Nihon". Have you? |And they wonder why the Japanese are getting ahead. The Japanese and the Americans are about even in computer engineering. The USA is ahead in software engineering. The Koreans are rising quickly though they are still behind. W. Europe is behind but is probably ahead of the Koreans. Of course, the Singapore, Taiwan, and Hong Kong firms are behind all of them.
underdog@portia.Stanford.EDU (Dwight Joe) (04/14/90)
In article <19812@mephisto.UUCP> cheung@bison.UUCP (Shun Yan Cheung) writes: |In article <1990Apr13.230144.25650@athena.mit.edu> |kpchan@athena.mit.edu (Kai P Chan) writes: || ||You (= Dwight Joe) think 80x86 or 680x0 are high-tech stuffs? In my opinion, ||they are just the same old technology scaled up. They just put everything ||(e.g. caching, math co-processor etc.)on chip! | |To be completely honest, there is not much advances in the Von Neumann |achitecture since its conception. Maybe. But both Intel and Motorola has caught-on to RISC. In the latest versions of the 80x86 and the 680x0, the logic circuits have been redesigned so that the most frequently used instructions can now execute in 1 or 2 cycles max. This result was obtained by increasing somewhat the number of cycles needed to execute the more complex instructions. The MIPS ratings of both processors are within striking distance of a "true" RISC processor. The maintenance of compatibility does not necessarily mean that new technology has been forsaken. IMHO, this was a shrewd business decision by both Intel and Motorola. It should help to keep these microprocessor families alive for quite some time despite all the "truly" RISC processors that are available.