On Monday 15 March 2021 07:05:02 [email protected] wrote: > On Mon, Mar 15, 2021 at 11:09:35AM +0100, Sven Hartge wrote: > > [...] > > > Another rumor I read was that IBM, when developing the first IBM PC > > in 1980, opted to use the 8086/8088 CPU instead of the also availble > > M68k CPU because the Intel one was less powerful so it would not be > > in competition with the mainframes the PC was supposed to interface > > with primarily. > > Too lazy to research now, but it sounds credible, yes. > > > If this rumor is true and IBM had acted differently, the PC > > ecosystem today would also look quite differently. > > Or the Z8000. Absolutely. 8086 was, architecturally, the worst > possible choice at that time. > That, IIRC was a new, super shiny, thing from zilog. No experience with it, but if it was as unreliable as the z-80, was, I'm not sorry it failed. The Z-80 had an instruction that swapped the foregrund/background register sets. But it only worked on odd hours of the day. And had no way of testing if the command had worked without sacrificing 1 of the three registers. in both sets.
When I finally got schmardter and wrote a test loop to check it, called zilog, and it was out of their 90 day warranty. They would not replace it. I should have called them and got a sample, but I'm honest and told them the truth. I never again used a zilog chip in anything. I was then on a small town AM/FM radio stations budget, developing an Automatic Transmitter System for a temperature picky fm transmitter that really ought to have been replaced, starting with the brand label on the front panel. This was in 1980, and the late 70's saw many Ma and Pa small town broadcasters severely impacted by trying to replace aging tube transmitters with early solid state versions before the tech was mature enough to be as dependable as the tube models. It took another ten years before the semi failure rates went below that of electrolytic capacitors. Now design rule violations by the gear makers are responsible for a good share of the failure bugs. But they are a distant part of the list, well behind electrolytic caps whose technology has not been seriously improved in a hundred years now. Even Tesla has put money into new versions, and come up short or they would be in his cars replaceing the lithium and dangerous batteries right now. > Cheers > - t Take care and stay safe and well, Tomas. Cheers, Gene Heskett -- "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." -Ed Howdershelt (Author) If we desire respect for the law, we must first make the law respectable. - Louis D. Brandeis Genes Web page <http://geneslinuxbox.net:6309/gene>
