Re: Any research putting c above ada?

[thornley@visi.com (David Thornley)]

In article <5j31dt$o3j@huron.eel.ufl.edu>,
Daniel P Hudson <afn03257@stuff.afn.org "Dan"> wrote:
>
>>->   Perhaps you knew of a better micro-processor for systems that could
>>->   fit on the average desktop? It just so happens that the 8086 was
>>->   state of the art back then.
>
>>Can you say, MC68000?
>
>Can you say cost effective?
>
>The Motorolla MC68000 was small, technologically advanced, and TWICE
>the cost. PC's were expensive enough already, thank you. Plus, the 68000
>was an extremely slow chip, even compared to the 8086/8088. Add to that
>the additional cost in memory chips, and its easy to see why IBM choose
>Intel. Why? They are a business and Intel offered the best deal. As to
>proof of the success over using Intel over Motorolla, look at Apple and 
>IBM clones [Obviously IBM makes more than PC's] and compare. Clones
>are growing at a rate of at least 50% a year [Gateway 2000 is 100%]
>and Apple is, oh that's right, down sizing. I asked for a reasonable
>replacement, not one that would have put IBM under, Kaz.

IBM went with the lowest-cost option, the 8088, that could use more
than 64K of memory.  (I've read that they almost went with the 6502!)
The 8086 was slightly more expensive, and required sixteen RAM
chips minimum (one for each line on the data bus), as opposed to
the 8088 which required eight chips.  An additional attraction of the
8086/8088 series was that 8080 assembler code could be retargetted
for the 8086/8088, with the added attraction that Microsoft Basic,
when it came out, ran slower on an IBM PC than on a nice Cromenco
box, with its mighty 4 MHz Z80.

The 68000, by the way, was not a slow chip.  When it started to
get popular, it was considered the approximate equivalent of an
80286 of the same clock speed.  Miserable by today's standards, but
fantastic at the time.  IBM produced some small computers based on
the 68000, which got critical acclaim, if not commercial success.

It is interesting to speculate on what might have happened if IBM
had gone for a chip of modern architecture, as opposed to one
constrained by the need for assembler source compatibility with
the 8008 (yes, those 8s and 0s are in the right order).

Nor is the success of the PC architecture due to its technical
merits, but rather to the initials on the box (for its first
several years) and to the slapdash way it was designed, making
it easy to copy (after that).  Apple, BTW, no longer uses 68Ks,
suffered from over a decade of boneheaded management, and is
primarily laying off people not involved in computer and OS
production.  Production of computers using the Mac OS continues
to rise, although Apple's market share is declining (last I saw,
it was still the largest individual market share, though).

This only leaves two main undiscussed questions:  Will I be lynched
by c.l.c. regulars for referring to porting assembler source, and
what does any of this have to do with C?

char *name = "David Thornley";