discrete transistors

From: Allison J Parent <allisonp_at_world.std.com>
Date: Mon Oct 19 14:00:33 1998

< So don't underestimate the power of a micoprocessor. We
< just bring them unde a yoke, no 'real' processor ever
< har to carry.

Oh, I don't. I've said Z80s are not as shabby as some of the latterday
retrorevisionists would think. I've never seen a i286
running anything (OS) that really used all the raw power in any
useful way other than in embedded tasks. That view come from mostly
ISA bus PC implementations while interesting are really not best
possible performance.

At the other end of the line there were some monster transistor based
systems that offered stellar performance at a price. Some of the SSI
(small scale integration) IC machines of the late 60s bumped up those
numbers or shrank/lowered their cost.


Allison
Received on Mon Oct 19 1998 - 14:00:33 BST