[geeks] just to stir things up, a few predictions

[Francisco Javier Mesa-Martinez]

On Sat, 23 Oct 2004 19:04:28 -0400
  Dave Fischer <dave at cca.org> wrote:
> lefa at ucsc.edu writes:
> 
>>More trivia, NT is called that because the original 
>>target 
>>for the research project was the N-Ten processor (aka the 
>>80860). When it was clear that processor sucked big 
>>donkey 
>>balls and the x86 was thought to be a dead end (late 80's 
> 
> i860 was great at what it was originally designed for -
> a dedicated math processor for graphics cards and such.
> (Painfully, certainly, but still great.)

Not really, the 80860 was designed as a general purpose 
CPU, in fact it was supposed to be the "death knell" for 
the x86 according to intel... basically the 486 was to be 
the last x86 interation and then everyone was moving to 
the 80860, 801860, etc... Since no one could get anywhere 
the estimated performance from the compilers, then people 
realized that the machine had a pretty nice integrated 3D 
HW and used it as a gfx and copro machine. There were 
vendors who provided hybrid systems with 486 and 860 on 
board to help in the transition.

I believe that Motorola planned their own move with the 
68000 -> 880000, and Intel did the same with their 8086 -> 
80860. None of which was sucessful at al...

Every now and then we seem to have a 860 related thread in 
this list.

> I get confused between ACE & CHRP.

... to get even more confused throw ARC into the mix. :(