phaedrus@eneevax.UUCP (Praveen Kumar) (12/16/85)
I found the following ad. in local (Wash. D.C.) BBS. I was wondering if anybody had heard of this. I am kind of skeptical and am assuming it is another ripoff, but I just wanted to make sure. /**************************************/ >No, this is no joke. For $40, plus $1.50 s&h, you get your choice >of the following, depending in what machine you have (NY residents >add sales tax) > > - Fully 8088 compatible - Available in 5 or 8mhz speeds > > >These chips are full 8088/86 clones, except they have been highly >enhanced internally, resulting in throughput enhancement from 5 to >100%. It works on Compaqs, IBM's & Clones and have yet to find >something that doesn't run, and I have tested everything from BASICA, >to Symphony, to Flight Simulator... In the Compaq, Norton's SI >returns a speed index of 1.8, an 80% increase in throughput. Note >that I say throughput... It processes instructions in less clock >cycles... there are no changes to the system clock, it stays the same. > >To order yours, send a check or money order (no cash) to: > > Information Systems Services * > 221 Park Avenue > New Hyde Park, New York 11040 > > > Please allow 2 weeks for out-of-state checks to clear, money order >orders ship out in 24 hours... This is FOR REAL, and it has been >tested thouroughly by many Sysops. > >*No Showrooms, Demonstrations or Walkins* > >For you techies, it has: >1) Dedicated effective address calc hardware which does it's job in > 2 clock cycles, versus 5-12 for Intel. >2) Dual internal bus, versus single. >3) Pre-fetch pointer, versus none, speeds calls, jumps, rets, etc. >4) Dedicated math section, speeds up math intensive applications by > an average of 60 to 80% >5) Enhanced instruction set, supports BCD, single bit, and other > great instructions (new, not in Intel version) >6) Emulates 8080 (this is amazing, but it does do it!!!) >7) Low power consumption (CMOS!!!), 300mw vs 1500me Intel >8) Standby mode, super-low power consumption >9) Other functions, too many to mention here, but available in > specs, extra $3.00 if you want a copy. >10) Nec has software support for the chip for the PC and other > MS- and PC-DOS machines, and even the VAX and other systems. > >Don't miss out on this... IT REALLY WORKS, or YOUR MONEY BACK!!! > /**************************************/ If anybody has heard of it, please post to usenet since I am sure everyone is interested. Thanks, -- praveen This ain't my goddamn planet, monkey-boy! phaedrus@eneevax.arpa or {seismo,allegra}!umcp-cs!eneevax!phaedrus
BillW@su-score.arpa (William Chops Westfield) (12/16/85)
It sounds like they are selling the NEC V20 chip. This chip was extensively discussed on the net a short while ago. Summary: Yes, its a compatible, and faster, with the usual speedup being 10-20% in typical programs (some instructions are sped up more, but most programs wont have justthose instructions!). Other places are selling the chip for considerable under the $40 price you quote. For example, JDR microdevices had it advertised for $29.95 (over a month ago)... BillW
kdale@vaihingen-emh.arpa (Keith Dale) (12/16/85)
>I found the following ad. in local (Wash. D.C.) BBS. I was wondering if >anybody had heard of this. I am kind of skeptical and am assuming it is >another ripoff, but I just wanted to make sure. /**************************************/ >>No, this is no joke. For $40, plus $1.50 s&h, you get your choice >>of the following, depending in what machine you have (NY residents >>add sales tax) >> >> - Fully 8088 compatible - Available in 5 or 8mhz speeds >> >> >>These chips are full 8088/86 clones, except they have been highly >>enhanced internally, resulting in throughput enhancement from 5 to >>100%. It works on Compaqs, IBM's & Clones..... Sounds like an ad for NEC V20 or V30's. They DO work, if you remember the debates on the net a few months ago.. Keith <kdale@vaihingen-emh.arpa>
hes@ecsvax.UUCP (Henry Schaffer) (12/16/85)
> I found the following ad. in local (Wash. D.C.) BBS. I was wondering if > anybody had heard of this. ... > >No, this is no joke. For $40, plus $1.50 s&h, you get your choice > >of the following, depending in what machine you have ... > > - Fully 8088 compatible - Available in 5 or 8mhz speeds > >These chips are full 8088/86 clones, except they have been highly > >enhanced internally, resulting in throughput enhancement from 5 to > >100%. ... > >For you techies, it has: > >1) Dedicated effective address calc hardware ... > praveen It sounds like the NEC V20 chip. (I've lent out my spec sheet, so I can't check the details.) However, there is some hype in this ad - the people I've talked to have reported gains mostly in the 5-15% range, and they bought the chips for around $25. --henry schaffer
ray@othervax.UUCP (Raymond D. Dunn) (12/16/85)
In article <457@eneevax.UUCP> phaedrus@eneevax.UUCP (Praveen Kumar) writes: >I found the following ad. in local (Wash. D.C.) BBS. I was wondering if >anybody had heard of this. I am kind of skeptical and am assuming it is >another ripoff, but I just wanted to make sure. > >..[lots & lots of marketing hype].. > This is obviously the NEC V20 and V30 chips which have been discussed to death on these newsgroups! Ray Dunn. ..philabs!micomvax!othervax!ray
GUBBINS@radc-tops20.arpa (Gern) (12/16/85)
Oh ya, Your ad is a rip off as everyone else is selling them for $20. Check JDR Micro in Byte among others. Cheers, Gern -------
GUBBINS@radc-tops20.arpa (Gern) (12/16/85)
It is the NEC V20/V30 8088/8086 clone that uses an 80188/80186 address architecture and extra instructions. Please refer to severl issues over the past 4 months on INFO-IBMPC and INFO-HZ100. My advice: Don't use it! It is not 'quite' compatible, is CMOS (may not have the drive capability for some unusual non-standard designs), requires a different duty cycle clock (hardware incompatable), and tends to make several machines and software crash at the worst possible times (a 'gotcha'). Actual user benchmarks indicate that the speed increase is around 3-6% (which is trivial) and makes it not worth all the other risks. Not to mention Intel is suing them for hardware piracy on stealing the 8088/8086 and again for the V20/V30. Cheers, Gern -------
jpn@teddy.UUCP (12/16/85)
>>Don't miss out on this... IT REALLY WORKS, or YOUR MONEY BACK!!! >> >If anybody has heard of it, please post to usenet since I am sure everyone >is interested. This is the NEC V20/V30 series of chips. The claims made are true, but perhaps a bit misleading. >>No, this is no joke. For $40, plus $1.50 s&h, you get your choice >>of the following This sounds a bit high. I seem to recall prices being closer to $25. I could be wrong - I got mine for free. >> - Fully 8088 compatible - Available in 5 or 8mhz speeds This is the V20. The V30 is 8086 compatible. >>These chips are full 8088/86 clones, except they have been highly >>enhanced internally, resulting in throughput enhancement from 5 to >>100%. Well... PC magazine ran some benchmarks on these chips. (Just the last issue or two - sorry, dont have the issue with me just now!) The V20 (8088 clone) seemed to speed up closer to 5% for any normal instruction mix in existing 8088 code. (i.e. not taking advantage of the new, extra instructions. A few instructions are faster, but most are about the same. PC magazine's explaination is that the 8 bit data bus is still the bottleneck. Apparently the V30 (8086 clone) gets a better average improvement (15% - 30%). Actually, I had a mandelbrot set generator program that sped up significantly. This program was doing LOTS of multiplies. >> It works on Compaqs, IBM's & Clones and have yet to find >>something that doesn't run, and I have tested everything from BASICA, >>to Symphony, to Flight Simulator... Yeah, just about everything I tried worked as well. I had one game program which broke, but it was copy protected, and I suspect the speed difference was the problem more than the V20 instruction set. >> In the Compaq, Norton's SI >>returns a speed index of 1.8, an 80% increase in throughput. Note >>that I say throughput... It processes instructions in less clock >>cycles... there are no changes to the system clock, it stays the same. Oh, it has already been noted that the Norton's SI program must use a benchmark that mostly uses the speeded up instructions. Multiply/Divide, for example. Also, looping is a bit faster. Overall throughput increase is MUCH less than this, however. >>For you techies, it has: >>1) Dedicated effective address calc hardware which does it's job in >> 2 clock cycles, versus 5-12 for Intel. >>2) Dual internal bus, versus single. >>3) Pre-fetch pointer, versus none, speeds calls, jumps, rets, etc. >>4) Dedicated math section, speeds up math intensive applications by >> an average of 60 to 80% >>5) Enhanced instruction set, supports BCD, single bit, and other >> great instructions (new, not in Intel version) >>6) Emulates 8080 (this is amazing, but it does do it!!!) This is a good summary of the enhancements. The other "points" strike me as fluff (WHO CARES if it is CMOS or not!) I recall seeing an ad for a CPM emulator running on top of MSDOS that uses the V20's 8080 instruction mode. I have not seen this in action, however. One thing that WASN'T mentioned is that the V20/V30 supports the 80186 extended instructions. (These are the same as the 80286 unprotected mode extra instructions) If you have a compiler/assembler (Microsoft C 3.0 for instance) that can generate these instructions, you can use them (at the expense of not being able to run the program on an unmodified PC). The new, "extra" instructions are available only to the assembly language programmer. An article was recently posted to net.micro.pc and net.sources (<579@moncol.UUCP>) which supplies a series of macros to take advantage of the new instructions. Using these instructions has the same caveat as above - you cannot run the program on an unmodified machine. John P. Nelson (decvax!genrad!teddy!jpn seismo!harvard!talcott!panda!teddy!jpn)
kim@mips.UUCP (Kim DeVaughn) (12/16/85)
> I found the following ad. in local (Wash. D.C.) BBS. I was wondering if > anybody had heard of this. I am kind of skeptical and am assuming it is > another ripoff, but I just wanted to make sure. > > >No, this is no joke. For $40, plus $1.50 s&h, you get your choice > > ... > >These chips are full 8088/86 clones, except they have been highly > >enhanced internally, resulting in throughput enhancement from 5 to > >100%. It works on Compaqs, IBM's & Clones and have yet to find > > ... > >1) Dedicated effective address calc hardware which does it's job in > > 2 clock cycles, versus 5-12 for Intel. > >2) Dual internal bus, versus single. > > ... > If anybody has heard of it, please post to usenet since I am sure everyone > is interested. What's being described here is the NEC V30 and V20 chips (8086 and 8088 compatible respectively). Though the performance increase varies with the application (nearly none for mostly arithmetic applications to over 40% for string-op intensive ones), they do work well. I have a Fujitsu u-16s, 8MHz machine, and replaced the 8086 with a V30; I'd estimate the aggregate performance increase to be in the 15%-20% range. There has been considerable discussion on these chips in "net.micro.pc" over the last couple of months. There is also an EXCELLENT article (part 1 of 2 parts) in the 5th issue of Micro/Systems Journal. I'm a bit surprised by the price ... JDR (JRD?) Electronics has been advertising V20's in the back pages of Byte magazine for about half the price that you mentioned for several issues now. I picked up my 8MHz, ceramic, V30 for $20.10 (+ tax) at a local distributor. If you decide to install one of these chips, get an 8MHz part as there *could* be a slight problem with the clock duty-cycle on the 5MHz part. /kim -- UUCP: {decvax,ucbvax,ihnp4}!decwrl!mips!kim DDD: 415-960-1200 USPS: MIPS Computer Systems Inc, 1330 Charleston Rd, Mt View, CA 94043
Ghenis.pasa@xerox.arpa (12/17/85)
Sounds like the NEC V20 / V30 chips. Yes, they are for real.