segmented memory models

On 2 Aug 2008 at 21:48, Andy Holt wrote: It wouldn't surprise me that an 80286-like chip was on the drawing board when the 8086 was launched. Intel tended to think pretty far ahead back then. Indeed, the 432 had segments. Multics-derived OSes weren't the only game in town using protection schemes back then. When the 8086 was launched, OS memory protection was very much current thinking, just as OOP and message-passing OSes were current mainstream thought when the 432 was designed. An earlier comment was made about "home PCs" not being seen when the first generation of 16-bit chips were deployed. That may have been true, but "business computers" were very much part of mainstream thought. Chip manufacturers could look at the success of the likes of the DEC and DG minis and easily see where the future was pointed. I do recall that the Intel rep did say that the 432 was designed as an Ada machine. That may have been speculation on the part of marketing type, but it demonstrates where the thinking was. What's ironic to me is that the i960 RISC processor arose out of the ashes of the very-very-CISC 432. From one extreme to the other. Another curiosity was the interesting game thatSiemens was playing. Around 1978 they paired up with AMD to form a joint venture called "American Micro Computers" or AMC to develop a support base for the Z8000. When that flopped, they tried the same approach with Intel a few years later with a joint venture, called BiiN to develop a support base for the i960, which ultimately flopped. I have some AMC manuals, but no BiiN paper. Does anyone own any of the development system hardware produced by either AMC or BiiN? It should be pretty rare. Cheers, Chuck