Speaking of which, does anyone have any 387 chips to go in a laptop?
I guess they're the pinless variety.
Speaking of
which, I read in a PC repair book that the 486SX is a
486DX with certain lines cut to disable the math coprocessor. The
thing that went into the coprocessor socket was a rebranded 486DX
that took over all functions of the SX when installed. Anyone know
about this?
PC Magazine back in the early 90's had something that mentioned this.
If I
remember correctly it was one of the Dvorak columns.
He mentioned that
the
486SX was basically a marketing ploy by Intel to allow
them to get rid
of
486DX chips with defective Math CoPro units.
As for a Math CoPro for the 486, I'm not sure I ever saw a 487 chip,
but I
always figured that they took the chips that didn't
cut it as a normal
processor but had a good Math CoPro, and sold them as 487's.
I've no idea if this is true, but it made sense to me, since why
through
out a chip with a good processor, with you can just
package it as a
486SX,
and sell it at reduced cost. Sounds to me like
everyone won. After
all,
how many people really felt the need for a Math
CoProcessor in the
early
90's? I added one to a 386sx laptop in January of
'94 when I was
forced to
go from my 486DX/33 to a 386SX/16 laptop since I was
mainly using it
for
Linux, and didn't want to have to emulate the math
functions, still I
don't
know that I needed it.
Zane
| Zane H. Healy | UNIX Systems Adminstrator |
| healyzh(a)ix.netcom.com (primary) | Linux Enthusiast |
| healyzh(a)holonet.net (alternate) | Classic Computer Collector |
+----------------------------------+----------------------------+
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