🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <3as49j$5...@harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au>,
GM Enierga <gme...@lindblat.cc.monash.edu.au> wrote:

>>You mean HP+Intel = a really nice CPU?  Btw, what improvements will the 686
>>have over the 486 and 586 class processors?

	Yes, according to the industry paper PC Week, HP and Intel will team
together to develop a wholly RISC processor for personal computers based on
HP's PA-RISC designs.

>	That may be hard to get an answer there.  As far as I know down here
>the PowerPc is STILL not out. (The PowerMac is, but that's a diff. kettle of
>fish).

	Neither is an IBM-made PowerPC personal system available here in the
states yet.  The only PowerPC machine made by IBM that I know of would be
the RS/6000 AIX workstation.  They keep claiming, "any day now..."  But it's
getting pretty comical.  =)  Kinda like, "How much farther, Papa Smurf?"
In addition, any IBM-made PowerPC personal system made before the unified
PPC Reference Platform between Apple and IBM is not going to sell well.
The users seem to want to be sure of the PowerPC's direction before
committing.

>	But you will need the board to run at a clock-triple speed (or somethin
>like that - and yes I know that a DX4 is only clock-3x INSIDE the chip).  If
>this was the case then they would NOT had brought out motherboards which take
>advantage of the dx2 chips - and I mean specific motherboards which are
>"downward compatible" - I know they exist for I have seen them).

	Nope...  I put together clone machines and have built up DX4
systems for several clients.  One does not need special motherboards for DX4
OverDrives.  Regular DX4s without the voltage regulators don't need anything
really special either; there are motherboards out there that can accept 3.3
or 5-volt CPUs by simply setting the appropriate jumpers.  Regardless of
processor speed, be it DX4-100, DX2-66, or DX-33, they all can use the same
motherboards (except for the voltage considerations I mentioned).  There is
no *VLB motherboards* out there for Intel 486 chips (AMD and Cyrix is another
matter) which exceed 33mHz bus speed, and that is due to the limitations of
the VESA Local Bus, which has a top speed of 40mHz.  That's why the Intel
486DX50 (not the DX2-50) was never popular; its 50-mHz bus speed is just too
fast for VESA Local Bus and consequently DX50s are sold in ISA or EISA
systems.  Newer VLB boards have 50mHz speed restrictions, but these are not
very prolific as yet.

TRH Sends