In message <9308201050.AA13065@resi.waldorf-gmbh.de> you write:
|In article <js9e6r2@zuni.esd.sgi.com>, olson@anchor.esd.sgi.com (Dave Olson) w
|rites:
||> In <24q0idINNnk9@ymir.cs.umass.edu> doyle@gaia (Jim Doyle) writes:
||> | Windows Sources, Sept 1993 vol 1 issue 8, p25
||> |
||> | "By the end of this year, MIPS plans to introduce a small footprint
||> | version of its new low power R4200 RISC CPU that will be
||> | completely pin compatible with the existing Intel 486DX chips. Using
||> | a special MIPS replacement BIOS [...]
||> |
||> | [...] and by being pin compatible with the 486, the new chip will
||> | allow system board manufacturers to retrofir existing designed with
||> | little or no component modification"
||> | -----------
||> |
||> | I was under the impression that NEC was fabricating the 4200 and that
||> | it would require additional glue logic (an ASIC that MIPS also developed)
||> | to make it work with an ISA or EISA based PC motherboard ??
||>
||> Windows Sources is blowing smoke. The R4200 is compatible with the
||> R4000 PC (if I remember everything right). That's a long way from the
||> Intel chips.
||>
||> I hope their other news is more reliable.
||> --
||>
||> The most beautiful things in the world are | Dave Olson
||> those from which all excess weight has been | Silicon Graphic
|s
||> removed. -Henry Ford | olson@sgi.com
|
|
|What do we think about that ?
|
|Andy
On one hand it sounds like a champ - you take a conventional 486DX board,
change the CPU and viola- you have a risc machine.
But I see two disadvantages to this (as far as my lack of knowledge in
hardware permits me):
1. If you know Dave Olson you should know to listen to him when he doubts about
the possibility of such a beast (to those who don't know the man - he is the
guru on the comp.sys.sgi.* news groups and so I heard from someone who
worked with him, but I'm not sure how much strong is his h/w side).
2. Maybe more important - you are still stuck with an ISA/EISA bus (right?),
which I understand is quite limited. Although the argument of using
existing hardware from your current boxes is very valid, I would preffer
to use another bus (dunno what the options are) and hang an EISA on it if
that's possible.
Cheers,
--Amos
--Amos Shapira (Jumper Extraordinaire) | "It is true that power corrupts,
C.S. System Group, Hebrew University, | but absolute power is better!"
Jerusalem 91904, ISRAEL |
amoss@cs.huji.ac.il | -- the Demon to his son
|