The Perfect Computer - 36 bits?
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From: Charles Richmond on 1 Apr 2007 02:39 CBFalconer wrote: > Nick Maclaren wrote: >> Morten Reistad <first(a)last.name> writes: >>> Lastest pc press blurbs. Vista only runs around 80 of 150 >>> identified critical XP applications. >> Hasta la vista? > > No, Vista hasta go sista. > It's just *another* Mi$uck mess... What can we expect??? This is their idea of innovation. -- +----------------------------------------------------------------+ | Charles and Francis Richmond richmond at plano dot net | +----------------------------------------------------------------+
From: jmfbahciv on 1 Apr 2007 07:15 In article <MPG.207840b219666d1b98a273(a)news.individual.net>, krw <krw(a)att.bizzzz> wrote: >In article <eulkcd$8qk_008(a)s911.apx1.sbo.ma.dialup.rcn.com>, >jmfbahciv(a)aol.com says... >> In article <MPG.2077890e34e0efbb98a26e(a)news.individual.net>, >> krw <krw(a)att.bizzzz> wrote: >> >In article <460d9c5a$0$1428$4c368faf(a)roadrunner.com>, >> >Peter_Flass(a)Yahoo.com says... >> >> jmfbahciv(a)aol.com wrote: >> >> > In article <euggeu$92m$1(a)gemini.csx.cam.ac.uk>, >> >> > nmm1(a)cus.cam.ac.uk (Nick Maclaren) wrote: >> >> > >> >> >>In article <eugf8g$8qk_003(a)s879.apx1.sbo.ma.dialup.rcn.com>, >> >> >>jmfbahciv(a)aol.com writes: >> >> >>|> >> >> >>|> It could be the way DEC tracked the sales. PDP-10 product line >> >> >>|> never got any "credit" for all the minis it sold. >> >> >> >> >> >>I was actually thinking from the customer end, but cannot say which >> >> >>was the chicken and which the egg. >> >> > >> >> > >> >> > Neither could DEC managmeent and their bean counters. They ended >> >> > up ignoring that (I can never remember the correct value) somewhere >> >> > between 60-70% of the mini customers also had at least one PDP-10. >> >> > Most had more. >> >> > >> >> >> >> IBM had and has this problem too. Maybe there's just no way to quantify >> >> it sufficiently for the MBAs that look at this stuff. Many times I've >> >> seen them cancel a product that probably sold lots of other stuff with it. >> >> >> >We constantly were up against that problem in the crypto group. We >> >could point to systems that wouldn't have been sold were it not for >> >ICRF (take-aways from Hitachi, IIRC) but the CPU sales team claimed >> >them. Since our profits were minimal (intended as a differentiator) >> >we were up against cancelation every six months or so. When the >> >layoffs came to the Hudson Valley ('93) we were rather nervous (we >> >were spared for some unknown reason and I found a life raft to the >> >frozen North). >> > >> >> Yup. And think of all the funcking money spent trying to cancel >> and then justify keeping the group around. You could have "made" >> millions more by simply not discussing it. > >In the end, the reason we (all ten of us) were allowed to live is >that we had a few large customers who swore on a stack of bibles >they'd never buy another CPU from IBM if they pulled support. They'd >buy Amdahl first (the knife in the heart ;-). > We had quite a few of those. Our woodenheadedness finally wore them out. /BAH
From: jmfbahciv on 1 Apr 2007 08:29 In article <1175381538.964435.181470(a)n59g2000hsh.googlegroups.com>, "Quadibloc" <jsavard(a)ecn.ab.ca> wrote: >David Kanter wrote: >> On Mar 5, 5:20 am, "Quadibloc" <jsav...(a)ecn.ab.ca> wrote: > >> > Struggling with many opcode formats with which I was not completely >> > satisfied in my imaginary architecture that built opcodes up from 16- >> > bit elements, I note that an 18-bit basic element for an instruction >> > solves the problems previously seen, by opening up large vistas of >> > additional opcode space. >> >> Why is 18 bits any better than 32 bits? > >Well, 18 bits is less bits than 32 bits, but it's more bits than 16 >bits. So, if 16 bits aren't enough, jumping to 18 may get me what I >want while using fewer transistors. > >However, further thought has led me to modify my page further, and add > >http://www.quadibloc.com/arch/per01.htm > >where I show it might be possible to build instructions out of units >12 bits long, to economize on RAM, without giving much up. (Of course, >the PDP-8, and more especially the FPP-12, could be cited as >precedents here.) I'd been trying to constrain my thinking to 9. May I really think about more than that? /BAH
From: Toon Moene on 1 Apr 2007 10:11 Peter Flass wrote: > Jan Vorbr�ggen wrote: >> AFAIK, even the Alpha is not only being supported but being actively >> developed. > > This must be a change, then. A while ago I think I remember seeing a > "roadmap" that called for one or two bumps, and then nothing. In 2001 I saw a roadmap on the Alpha that ran well into 2013 - but that was probably because Compaq was trying to sell us a system .... -- Toon Moene - e-mail: toon(a)moene.indiv.nluug.nl - phone: +31 346 214290 Saturnushof 14, 3738 XG Maartensdijk, The Netherlands At home: http://moene.indiv.nluug.nl/~toon/ Who's working on GNU Fortran: http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc/2007-01/msg00059.html
From: Toon Moene on 1 Apr 2007 10:18
Tarkin wrote: > 8080 != Z80. ISTR reading from a few different > places that early Z80's were 'twitchy'; that's > also why there are 'undocumented' opcodes- > those opcodes did not work reliably until the kinks > were worked out of the (wafer production [?]) > process. That certainly would explain why I saw so many warnings against them in the end-of-the-seventies literature, while my Exidy Sorcerer (with a 2 Mhz Z80) did all these undocumented opcodes just fine (bought Dec. 80, used until late '83). -- Toon Moene - e-mail: toon(a)moene.indiv.nluug.nl - phone: +31 346 214290 Saturnushof 14, 3738 XG Maartensdijk, The Netherlands At home: http://moene.indiv.nluug.nl/~toon/ Who's working on GNU Fortran: http://gcc.gnu.org/ml/gcc/2007-01/msg00059.html |