jdg@elmgate.UUCP (Jeff Gortatowsky) (04/20/87)
I don't have to design computers around CPU's. I really admire those
who do this for a living as well as those who design the silicon
themselves. Instead I'm a programmer. I just USE the computer's you
out there design. I view the CPU as a "what con you do for me?" type
device. You can quote me MIPS and FLOPS and <whatever> till your blue
in the face. Which one performs for me? After desparately trying to
feel good about programming the 8088/86/186/286 I gave up. The
instruction set was filled with useless instructions, the register set
was always separated up into dedicated functionality, and the
performance in a >16bit address environment was terrible.
Along came the 68000/010/020 (My Sun at work, and my Amiga and ST at home)
and I felt at 'home'. Lots of 'who cares what register you use' instructions,
no special registers (well... ok 2 A7, and PC), and >16 addresses were
handled automatically. That's really important. Can you go ahead and
start coding? Are you comfortable? With 68k series I felt the answer
was yes. The Intel stuff, no.
Given that, which uP would you now favor? The programming model of the
386 doesn't look all that much different from the 8088.
The point is first impressions are lasting ones. So a 16mhz 386 beats a
16mhz 68020 by 10-20%... who cares? Intel made it's bed with Big Blue,
let it sleep there. The folks at Moto, AMD, NSC, MIPS, etc.. can move
on. In the mean time Intel can sit around trying to stay compatible with
earlier mistakes. I'm not really even knockin' Intel. After all, if you
could sleep with IBM, wouldn't you? No? Not EVEN from a business
standpoint? Sure you would.
The only beef I have is when business tries to make me comform to the
Intel/IBM 'standard'. Then the sparks fly........
Which do you feel 'comfortable' with??
--
Jeff Gortatowsky {seismo,allegra}!rochester!kodak!elmgate!jdg
Eastman Kodak Company
These comments are mine alone and not Eastman Kodak's. How's that for a
simple and complete disclaimer?