discrete transistors

Allison J Parent wrote: I never said that there were NO discrete transistor machines that could outperform a 286. I cited an example of a specific very large discrete-transistor machine made in 1962 which the 286 can outperform on many tasks. My point was that the larger a discrete-transistor machine is, the more difficult it is to make it run fast. Number of users supported is not a reasonable benchmark of raw CPU performance. The KA10 was nearly two orders of magnitude simpler than the Stretch CPU. Yet it was faster than the Stretch for some things. However, this is not too surprising since the Stretch was IBM's first attempt at designing a transistor-based computer. The 7090 and several other IBM transistor-based computers shipped before Stretch, but those designs were started later and were based on the circuit and packaging technology developed for Stretch. My entire point was that it is essentially impossible to build a discrete-transistor machine compatible with a modern high-end single-chip microprocessor (such as a Pentium II) and achieve better performance than the single-chip implementation. In fact, even using SSI and MSI integrated circuits will not get you there. Eric