hall@ittral.UUCP (Doug Hall) (08/30/85)
Well, I finally broke down and bought the NEC V20 processor for my MS-DOS based ITT Xtra. I kept hearing claims about it speeding up the IBM PC "up to 33%" so I ordered one. (For those who haven't heard about it, the NEC V20 is an 8088 compatible uP which supposedly achieves greater throughput at the same clock speed.) And it does. I ran some simple benchmarks which showed the improvement to range from about 10% up to about 30%. It is my understanding that the V20 takes less time for address calculations, so you'll see a bigger difference when there are lots of memory references. (I think.) Anyway, it isn't astounding, but it does make a difference. It seems to work fine with my 8087 too. But Intel is not very happy about this. It seems they feel that the NEC processors (there is also a V30 which is an 8MHz part, I think) infringe on the design of the 8086/8088, and they are taking NEC to court for it. I don't know enough about the details of the case to have an opinion, but if Intel wins, you may not see the V20 for sale anymore. If you want to buy one, look in BYTE or PC Week. There are several ads there; the going price is about $20-25. At least one manufacturer has started using the NEC parts in a product. While we're on the subject, does anyone have any info on this chip or the case? I know Intel is on the net, but I don't think NEC is. If I'm not mistaken, NEC is claiming that microcode is not protected or something like that. Anybody know the details? Doug Hall ITT Telecom, Raleigh NC decvax!ittatc!ittral!hall
hes@ecsvax.UUCP (Henry Schaffer) (09/13/85)
> > If they are not anywhere close to the same, then why is Intel suing > > NEC for stealing their microcode? > > > > Phil Ngai (408) 749-5720 > > My question is: If NEC > *did* steal Intel's microcode, why are the V20s reported to be 15% faster than > their born-in-the-USA brethren, at the same CPU clock rate? > Baba Copying even a portion can be a copyright violation. If they used the Intel microcode, and only changed the address calculation parts of it, then Intel would be suing over the rest. As I interpret the newspaper articles, NEC's defense is that it is ok to copy the microcode- they are not claiming that they didn't copy. --henry schaffer disclaimer: anyone who considers my opinions to be legal advice should see an attorney.