27 Dec
1998
27 Dec
'98
9:51 a.m.
If Intel's 8088 was stripped of half it's bus width, why was it used so much
more than the 8086? One of the few computers that I've seen with an 8086 is
the WANG WLTC (in the SCSI drive string). With being only 4 MHz (I think),
it way out-performs my 8088 8MHz Zenith (I just wish it wasn't so dang big).
I remember someone on here saying that an 8086 and 8088 were
interchangeable. Is this true, and would there be an advantage?
--
-Jason Willgruber
(roblwill(a)usaor.net)
ICQ#: 1730318
<http://members.tripod.com/general_1>
-----Original Message-----
From: Tim Hotze <tim(a)thereviewguide.com>
To: Discussion re-collecting of classic computers
<classiccmp(a)u.washington.edu>
Date: Sunday, December 27, 1998 12:49 PM
Subject: Re: OT, but info needed: RAM uprade
That's why it's Windows 95. It takes forever to boot. Anyway, cache's the
only thing that makes the K6-2 slower than a PII at the same clock speed.
If I remove my cache entirely on my 200MHz MMX system, then it performs
considerably slower than my 486 with 136K (IE 8K on chip, 128K on the
motherboard) cache. Also the bus speed matters a lot, especially on a
pre-486 (or 486SX with 487) system if you're doing heavy math, etc. I
don't know why Intel's 'low cost' processors are always so bone headed:
486SX, which removed the one true thing that made it a 486, 8088, removing
the crucial 16-bit bus of the 8086, 386SX, which worked pretty well, but
still halfed the external bandwidth (did Intel ever make a cheap version of
a 286?), and now we've got Celeron: Until the Celron A, no cache at all...
Tim
------------------------------------------------------*
*Ever onward, always forward. *
*Tim D. Hotze Panel Member, The Ultimate Web Host List*
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------------------------------------------------------*
27 Dec
27 Dec
3:23 a.m.
If Intel's 8088 was stripped of half it's bus
width, why was it used so
much more than the 8086? One of the few computers that I've seen with an
Price, or something. The 8086 was the same thing as an 8088, but with a
full 16-bit bus, which was important for almost everything in those days
(IE before you had an on-chip cache for frequently used operations, an on
chip FPU for 3D/math, and all kinds of stuff like that.)
8086 is the WANG WLTC (in the SCSI drive string). With
being only 4 MHz
(I >think), it way out-performs my 8088 8MHz Zenith (I just wish
it wasn't
so >dang big). I remember someone on here saying that an 8086 and 8088 were
interchangeable. Is this true, and would there be an
advantage?
I don't know if they're interchangable, but I'd think that you could swap a
8088 into an 8086 motherboard. Remember, it's the same processor up to the
bus, where the 8088's got a bone-headed 8-bit bus and the 8086's got a
16-bit one. The IBM PC, IIRC, used the 8088 because it WAS a 16-bit
processor (looked good on ads), and thus could take advantage of 16-bit
power, but with an 8-bit bus, which saved on cost. This is also why it
performed so poorly. Most of the IBM PC's (until more recently than you'd
think) cut corners in one way or another. The important thing about the 16
bit bus is the memory access, and you're practically halfing that. I think
they made an 8MHz 8086. The IBM used a 4.77MHz 8088. My XT (and I'm the
first person to open the case since the XT was orionally sold in 1985) has
an AMD 8088, as this is when Intel and AMD shared designs and fabs, to some
extent. (Anyone got history on how they split? What was it over? All I
know is that by the time of the 386, they had gone their seperate ways).
Tim
------------------------------------------------------*
*Ever onward, always forward. *
*Tim D. Hotze Panel Member, The Ultimate Web Host List*
*http://www.webhostlist.com worldsfate(a)geocities.com *
------------------------------------------------------*
9:28 a.m.
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8:30 a.m.
Not easily. The 8086 motherboard would be expecting 16
bit data from the
CPU. It's possible to do something like that, but it's not a drop-in
replacement. No idea why you'd _want_ to do that, of course.
Easy. If you had one and but not the other. But now, it's so fricking
cheap anyways...
Give an engineer a copy of the PC techrefs and count
how many times he
says 'They did WHAT???' as he reads the schematics :-). It appears that
if there are 2 ways to do something, the PC always made the worst >choice...
Remember who was making this: The IBM employees that wanted to be like
Apple. A bunch of rogues with a mission.... but not to much in the way of
$$$.
AMD 8088 chips (and the peripheral chips like the DMA
controller and
interrupt controller) are quite common in IBM PCs, etc.
I figured. Most of the chips I've seen from that era in the x86 arena are
AMD or someone, but Intel less often than you'd think. (Or, perhaps, if you
know what I'm talking about, just as often as you'd think.)
I believe that at one time if you bought an 8087 FPU
from IBM as a PC
upgrade you got an 8088 with it. Apparently some early 8088s (which ended
up in IBM PCs) had problems working with the 8087 (I can't remember the
details), so they gave you a 'good' 8088 to install with the 8087 just in
case you had a defective one in your machine
Hmm... see, that just isn't an economical idea. It might make more sense
to write a utility that figured it out, or to do something of that nature,
hand them the floppy (or tape, etc.) then say 'check.' But anyway, I'm
sure it was pretty good on cusomer satisfaction. Besides, having a spare
can't hurt.
-tony
Tim
------------------------------------------------------*
*Ever onward, always forward. *
*Tim D. Hotze Panel Member, The Ultimate Web Host List*
*http://www.webhostlist.com worldsfate(a)geocities.com *
------------------------------------------------------*
28 Dec
28 Dec
4:28 a.m.
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27 Dec
27 Dec
8:49 a.m.
On Sun, 27 Dec 1998, Jason Willgruber wrote:
If Intel's 8088 was stripped of half it's bus
width, why was it used so much
more than the 8086? One of the few computers that I've seen with an 8086 is
the WANG WLTC (in the SCSI drive string). With being only 4 MHz (I think),
it way out-performs my 8088 8MHz Zenith (I just wish it wasn't so dang big).
I remember someone on here saying that an 8086 and 8088 were
interchangeable. Is this true, and would there be an advantage?
When IBM ELS were designing the original 5150, 16-bit cards would have driven
the cost out of their US$4,000.00 retail target range, so they went with the
crippled 8088. A decision that, in hindsight, makes about as much sense as
including a cassette drive and (what was it???) 16K RAM on the first model.
--
-Jason Willgruber
(roblwill(a)usaor.net)
ICQ#: 1730318
<http://members.tripod.com/general_1>
--
David Wollmann
DST / DST Data Conversion
http://www.ibmhelp.com/
ICQ: 10742063
AIM: FathomS36
9:22 a.m.
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