3 Jun
2013
3 Jun
'13
12:48 p.m.
On 3 June 2013 20:04, Fred Cisin <cisin at xenosoft.com> wrote:
Ah, but that is not what is being discussed here.
The Linux kernel, as of version 3.8.0 - note, v3.9.4 is current; this
is a historical decision, last year sometime, I think - dropped
support for the 80386. It still supports 80486, Pentium (=586), 686
etc. It is just 80386 that has been dropped.
> 80386,
oddly, is far from "long dead".
On Mon, 3 Jun 2013, Liam Proven wrote:
It is in any market I *ever* see.
depends on your definition(s) of "long"
Is this Pentium running XP not really a 386 at heart?
Seems like there are quite a few around. When the 386 first came out, it was treated as a fast
286, without using
it's full cpabilities.
True.
BUT, eventually, 386 became the standard.
True.
When 486 and Pentium came out, they were treated as
fast 386s, and seemed
to stay that way for a very long time.
Well, they are. The instruction set didn't change from the 80386 in
1985 until the Pentium-MMX in about 1996.
Isn't that what "I386" means?
No. We are talking about the actual Intel 80386SX and 80386DX and
directly compatible processors here, not the 486 and other successors.
Those are still supported.
FWIW, today, 32-bit 386-ISA code is generally called x86-32 and 64-bit
x86 is x86-64, or (and I dislike both) "AMD64" or "X64".
Which versions of Windoze will not install on a 386?
(never mind issues
of "adequate performance"!) (386-SX is out just due to its 16M RAM limit)
Windows 2000 was the last version that would boot, install or run on a
486, I believe. Circa 13y ago. Time flies.
Ubuntu - to pick the leading Linux - requires a 686 family chip with
PAE support as of release 12.10, last year.
OTOH, Motorola took the opposite approach. When they
created the 6809,
they designed from scratch, to build "THE BEST 8 bit processor"
(arguably succeeding), and nothing previous was compatible. All board
designs and ALL software, including OS, had to be done from scratch.
It was definitely NOT "too little"!, but it may have been "too late",
the
Z80 was so firmly established, along with CP/M, that they had difficulty
breaking into that market. From what I understand, they handed the Coco
design to Radio Shack, and that was the only "major" entrant into that
market.
And as you say, it nearly bombed. The Dragon 32 & 64 - more familiar
to Europeans, I think - were slight tweaks of the CoCo design. (AFAIK
I have never seen an actual CoCo; I've seen and used many Dragons.)
Compare to the multiple models of 6502 and Z80 from multiple vendors.
On the 68000, they abandoned all chance of ANY
compatability, to build
"THE BEST 16 bit processor" (arguably succeeding). Not "too little",
but
almost "too late". X86 and MS-DOS dominated the market. Fortunately,
Jobs' "clean room" design team for the Lisa had no "real-world"
experience, and no clue to even consider working from old designs, and
using any old software. That was one of Jobs' major goals. After the
fiasco with the Apple /// that put Apple on the rocks, he was determined
that the new design would not be tainted by ANY knowledge of anything
previous. So, they picked a processor from spec sheets, and the 68000 was
the clear winner. They designed from scratch. When it came to software,
they also had to design from scratch, there did not exist any 68000
compatible, nor even easily portable code. They didn't even know to
CONSIDER compatability. Even the drives had to be different, with an
extra slot to make it easier to put thumbprints on the media.
The "Maserati of the mind" was a design team dream. priced accordingly,
and with no place to carry a bag of groceries.
Fortunately, (after Jobs was out), the Mac was
designed as a newer version
of a Lisa (and cutting the corners necessary to get it into the price
curve, albeit near the peak - does Apple still hold all records for
highest manufacturing mark-up?)
Jobs was part of the Mac team, you know; indeed he is largely
responsible for it being what it is. Jef Raskin's original design was
radically different.
Also, the Mac project started before the Lisa was out, so although it
inherited a lot, it didn't get everything; they ran in parallel for a
while.
Motorola got smart with the Power-PC and provided
superb emulation to
maintain full compatability.
ITYF that the *OS* provided MC68K emulation, not the processor.
Why did the promised "Intel emulation"
never
catch on?
Which form? The PPC that could run x86 code never shipped. MacOS X
10.4, 10.5 & 10.6 all provide a licensed-in software emulator to run
PPC code on x86. Apple called it Rosetta; it is really QuickTransit
from Transitive Corporation, now part of IBM. That,
arguably, was
quite a success.
So, . . .
you can be constrained by the past, but never have to start over.
Or, you can start over, and not have the inherited limitations.
Certainly a middle ground is POSSIBLE, but, we tend towards extremes.
That's certainly true...
--
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