ocyy@vax5.CIT.CORNELL.EDU (12/16/88)
I hope that I am posting to the best group. I recently heard that the 486 chip is headed for the real world. Can anyone forward a summary of info or just here? What are the major differences with the 386? What likely cost increase will there be or is this ultimately destined to be a PC CPU? How many years before production runs are on line? Many thanks, Dominic Ryan Dept. Chem. Cornell University. BITNET: OCYY@CRNLVAX5, INTERNET: see header
beres@cadnetix.COM (Tim Beres) (12/17/88)
In article <17566@vax5.CIT.CORNELL.EDU> ocyy@vax5.cit.cornell.edu () writes: > >I hope that I am posting to the best group. I recently heard that the 486 chip >is headed for the real world. Can anyone forward a summary of info or just >here? What are the major differences with the 386? What likely cost increase >will there be or is this ultimately destined to be a PC CPU? How many years >before production runs are on line? My info is from InfoWorld: The major difference is that the 486 will be a "set" of closely coupled chips, similar to the 386/cache/DMA set, but with higher levels of integration and (presumably) more features. Other stuff I've heard: 486 will include on-chip (pick one or more) FP, graphics, high speed I/O; the 486 will be RISC architected; first silicon will achieve 2X performance increase over top of line 386; you will see 486 machines on the market in 89. Of course I could be wrong. Tim ------>MY SOAPBOX (I speak not for Cadnetix nor any enjoined entity) OK, one more time: This is a frying pan.....this is an egg.... this is an egg in a frying pan....JUST SAY OVER EASY Tim Beres beres@cadnetix.com {uunet,boulder,nbires}!cadnetix!beres
ed@imuse.uucp (Ed Braaten) (12/19/88)
In article <17566@vax5.CIT.CORNELL.EDU> ocyy@vax5.cit.cornell.edu () writes: > >I hope that I am posting to the best group. I recently heard that the 486 chip >is headed for the real world. Can anyone forward a summary of info or just >here? What are the major differences with the 386? What likely cost increase >will there be or is this ultimately destined to be a PC CPU? How many years ^^^^^^ |||||| EEeeek!!!! Please spare us. The idea of DOS running at X-Mips... Please don't wish a future like that on the 80486! (I'm referring to all the under-worked 80386 CPU's out there in PC-boxes doing single- tasking brain-damaged DOS or executing sludge-ware like OS/2...) Thanks for rating comp.sys.intel as the 'best group'! ;-) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Ed Braaten | "Seek the Lord while he may be found; Intel Semiconductor GmbH | call on him while he is near." Dornacher Strasse 1 | Isaiah 55:6 8016 Feldkirchen bei Muenchen | West Germany | uucp: ed@imuse.uucp Ph: +49 89 90992-426 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
tboutell@vax1.acs.udel.EDU (Thomas B Boutell) (12/21/88)
Well, careful, now; he didn't say running MSDOS, he said existing as PC CPUs. Granted not every single user needs the power of a 486 to himself and multiuser applications will be common, but certainly as a workstation CPU it ought to be a dandy. (If you can afford it. (-: ) No reason why it can't be running a decent multitasking OS. -- ******************************************************************************* UNDISCLAIMER: The above are my opinions. An occasional fact may creep in. Message packaged by weight, not by volume. >>> POLYMORPH & *SPEED* YOUR DOG!<<< "Never mind the bollocks, here's..." tboutell@vax1.acs.udel.edu
ocyy@vax5.CIT.CORNELL.EDU (12/21/88)
In article <316@imuse.uucp> ed@imuse.uucp (Ed Braaten) writes: >>In article <17566@vax5.CIT.CORNELL.EDU> ocyy@vax5.cit.cornell.edu () writes: >>.... >>will there be or is this ultimately destined to be a PC CPU? How many years > ^^^^^^ > |||||| >EEeeek!!!! Please spare us. The idea of DOS running at X-Mips... >..... Perhaps I was a little too non-specific... What I meant was will it be in a 'personal' computer, that of course implies a 'workstation' like box, but also one that will be destined for the masses and therefore priced as such. Dominic Ryan.
wbeebe@bilver.UUCP (bill beebe) (12/21/88)
In article <316@imuse.uucp> ed@imuse.uucp (Ed Braaten) writes: > >EEeeek!!!! Please spare us. The idea of DOS running at X-Mips... >Please don't wish a future like that on the 80486! (I'm referring to >all the under-worked 80386 CPU's out there in PC-boxes doing single- >tasking brain-damaged DOS or executing sludge-ware like OS/2...) > >Thanks for rating comp.sys.intel as the 'best group'! ;-) I'd be careful what I called "brain-damaged" and "sludge-ware". Not only is Intel selling MessDOS 4.0 and OS/2 v1.1 with PM, but they have for some time now (in America, anyway) been selling training courses. As for the 80486, it is a fixed version of the 80386, just like the 80386 was a fixed version of the 80286... :^).
hartley@paul.rutgers.edu (Rod Hartley) (12/22/88)
For a good article about the production and business side of the 80486 chip, see the article in Business Week (September 26, 1988). Of course, you will not find a lot of technical information in this article, but it has an interesting discussion about Intel's competition in the marketplace.
mslater@cup.portal.com (Michael Z Slater) (12/23/88)
> 486 rumors
This is a slippery subject, but I'll venture a few items that I'm fairly
confident in.
o On-chip caches, 4K or so
o Versions with and without on-chip floating-point
o Average clocks per instruction close to 2, for a several-times speedup
over the 386
o Radically different bus interface
o 33 MHz initial clock rate
o Announcement around April '89
We also published a detailed article speculating that it would have
downloadable microcode in some form. I've heard this from enough places
that I believe there is some kernel of truth to it, but I now doubt the
microcode is "soft" on a wide scale.
Another very interesting aspect of the 486 is the chip that will be
promoted as a math coprocessor, code-named the N10. This is in fact
a stand-alone RISC processor, with astounding floating-point performance:
I've been told 50 MFLOPS double-precision. It will be coupled in some
way with the 486, with the 486 offloading tasks to it. Whether or not
it will be marketed separately is up in the air.
As for faster MS-DOS machines, I'll admit to spending many hours in
MS-DOS (mostly Ventura Publisher), and I'd be delighted to have an
MS-DOS machine that was 4X faster than my 386 box.
Michael Slater, Microprocessor Report, 550 California Ave, Suite 320,
Palo Alto, CA 94306; 415/494-2677 mslater@cup.portal.com