From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.3 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00,INVALID_MSGID autolearn=no autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 1014db,1042f393323e22da X-Google-Attributes: gid1014db,public X-Google-Thread: 103376,1042f393323e22da X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-Thread: 109fba,1042f393323e22da X-Google-Attributes: gid109fba,public From: eachus@spectre.mitre.org (Robert I. Eachus) Subject: Re: Any research putting c above ada? Date: 1997/04/21 Message-ID: #1/1 X-Deja-AN: 236404094 References: <5ih6i9$oct$1@waldorf.csc.calpoly.edu> <5itlph$1k9@bcrkh13.bnr.ca><5iui29$iei@flood.weeg.uiowa.edu> <5ivtcu$puv@huron.eel.ufl.edu><5j1ann$f20@bcrkh13.bnr.ca> <01bc4da9$75237100$f4f582c1@xhv46.dial.pipex.com> <5jeh0n$7jg@huron.eel.ufl.edu> Organization: The Mitre Corp., Bedford, MA. Newsgroups: comp.lang.c++,comp.lang.c,comp.lang.ada Date: 1997-04-21T00:00:00+00:00 List-Id: In article <5jeh0n$7jg@huron.eel.ufl.edu> afn03257@freenet4.afn.org (Daniel P Hudson) writes: > "Nick Roberts" wrote: > >Daniel P Hudson wrote in article > >There was another contender: the Zilog Z8000 (yes, with three noughts). > >This was their 16-bit follow-up to their spectacularly successful Z80. It Technically, there was no such beast. The two major Z8k chip families were the Z8001 and Z8002, which addressed different amounts of memory. There was also a Z800 which was much more of a competitor to the i8088. > And what was its cost relation to the i8088? I'm asking because > I don't ctually know about this one. I do know the one Kaz > mentioned would have jacked the price of a PC up by about > $300-$1000. Get your story straight. The 68k family member that would be comparable to the 8088 was the 68008, with an 8-bit data path. IBM made a calculated decision based on availability. The Intel delivery promise on the 8088 was much better than from Motorola on the 68008. It would have been nice if IBM had twigged to the real market, since the 8-bit memory access was only an advantage if you had less than 64K of memory. Very few early PCs were sold with less, and IBM for marketing reasons quickly upped the minimum configuration sold to 128K. > If you have a product that is obviously technically superior or > technically equivalent and cheaper, large corporations will > gladly hear your plea.You just have to take the initiative to > get off your ass and discuss it with them. I was in the business at the time, and the four way competition was a real horse race. (The other early player for the 16-bit market was National with the 16000, later named the 32000 series.) National lost out by being late with necessary support chips, and Zilog spent too much effort on the Z800, which no one wanted, instead of on support chips for the Z8000 family. Intel and Motorola were neck and neck for over a decade. (Actually, they still are. But Intel's RISCy designs the i860 and i960, never got the internal support needed, while Motorola got IBM (huh?) and Apple to commit to the PPC family.) Intel had PC clones for a volume driver, Motorola had Sun and later Apple, Stratus, and Commodore. (More 68K family processor chips went into Amigas than into Macs, in part because Apple shifted to the Power PC family, and in part because many Amigas had two 68K processors in them, including the one I am typing this on, and the one I use at home.) Stratus was important only because of the volume of 68K processor chips in one "computer." The 600 series had 18 68010's per processor board, two processor boards per logical processor, and often several logical processors per system. Much later, and still today, the 68K family shows up in process control sytems. > You can believe what you want, but the pure and simple fact is > in business, friendship means nothing, IBM went with the best > deal, not with the closest friend. IBM might have been willing > to pay a penny or two more per chip, but that wasn't the > difference between Intel's and most of the other competitors. CPU chip cost was a non-issue. Delivery of the volume of chips IBM needed was a major driver. When the 80286 (IBM PC/AT) and 80386 chips started shipping IBM was gobbling most of Intel's production for the first year. I don't remember the statistics on the 8088, but you could ask Intel or IBM, since it is now a history question. I seem to remember that IBM bought over two-thirds of the 8088s made. -- Robert I. Eachus with Standard_Disclaimer; use Standard_Disclaimer; function Message (Text: in Clever_Ideas) return Better_Ideas is...