TURGUT@TREARN.BITNET (Turgut Kalfaoglu) (01/25/91)
Those of you wishing to purchase a 386 laptop may wish to wait a little longer. I just read in BYTE that a NON-INTEL 386 chip has been produced that consumes MUCH less power than a regular 386, and is pin-for-pin,spec-for-spec compatible with the 'real thing'. The company,if I am not mistaken, is called AMD, and they are trying to work out the legal problems now. Byte says that the new chip won't be much cheaper, but Intel may have to drop its own price for it, since the new chip performs better.. Regards, -turgut
storm@cs.mcgill.ca (Marc WANDSCHNEIDER) (01/26/91)
In response to the post by TURGUT@TREARN.BITNET (Turgut Kafaoglu): The new AMD chip is SUPPOSED to consume less power than the 80386, and AMD claims compatibility. However, the latter is a topic of debate. The AMD chip might not be 100% compatible with the Intel chips, and while AMD claims that they have tried pretty well all software with it, we won't know until it is released. The litigation over whether AMD was allowed to produce the chip ended with a Judge slagging on Intel for crummy business practices. The current litigation is over whether AMD can use the the "386" in the name for the chip. Quite honestly, considering that the AMD chip won't be much cheaper, I'd rather stick with the safety of an INTEL chip. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ storm@cs.mcgill.ca Marc Wandschneider
rcollins@altos86.Altos.COM (Robert Collins) (01/29/91)
In article <91025.093344TURGUT@TREARN.BITNET> TURGUT@TREARN.BITNET (Turgut Kalfaoglu) writes: >Those of you wishing to purchase a 386 laptop may wish to wait a >little longer. I just read in BYTE that a NON-INTEL 386 chip has been >produced that consumes MUCH less power than a regular 386, and is >pin-for-pin,spec-for-spec compatible with the 'real thing'. The >company,if I am not mistaken, is called AMD, and they are trying to >work out the legal problems now. > Even better yet, is the announced Intel 80386-SL. It is designed specifically for laptops, and has power management built into the chip. The power management uses its own interrupt that has a higher priority than NMI. When the power management interrupt occurs, a separate memory space is mapped in (not swapped) to the user real-mode space. In this manner, it is possible to have a power management BIOS, and have the power management features be totally non-intrusive. The '386-SL supports 32MB memory, and is a fully static device. -- "Worship the Lord your God, and serve him only." Mat. 4:10 Robert Collins UUCP: ...!sun!altos86!rcollins HOME: (408) 225-8002 WORK: (408) 432-6200 x4356