dpm@K.GP.CS.CMU.EDU (David Maynard) (10/16/87)
It is not possible to explain the failure of the Intel 432 product in a single sentence which "points the blame" at some particular component or business decision. If you are interested in a thorough analysis of the performance of the 432 you should refer to "The Performance Effects of Functional Migration and Architectural Complexity in Object-Oriented Systems" by Robert P. Colwell (Available from the CMU Computer Science Dept. as tech report CMU-CS-85-159). In addition to analyzing the performance of the 432, Colwell highlights the architectural features of the 432 which made it an amazing research project, and explains some of the less than optimal engineering choices which were partially responsible for its failure as a commercial product. (Note: Some of the sub-optimal choices, although easy to point out in retrospect, would have been much more difficult to understand at the time.) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- David P. Maynard Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering Carnegie Mellon University Arpa: dpm@k.gp.cs.cmu.edu ---------------------------------------------------------------------------