Intel the CPU Company
abortretry.fail
abortretry.fail
The Motorola 68000 has 8 32-bit data registers and 8 32-bit address registers. They are named D0..D7 and A0..A7. You can use these in most instructions in the obvious/expected way. Maybe it's not completely orthogonal, but close enough. With those registers, you can keep 8 intermediate values and 8 pointers, and perform reasonable operations on them (add this and that, and store at that address)
The 80286 instruction has just 4 16-bit registers, 4 more registers with strange names (BP, SI, DI, SP) and 4 segment registers. None of these are general-purpose. I just looked it up and apparently, you can only use AX and DX for multiply/divide instructions. The segmented addressing is what is most repulsive about the whole thing: you can't just put an address into a register. You have to use a segment register and use an offset so the real address is (segment register value)*16 + offset. The reason for all this bad design is presumably compatibility with even more primitive earlier processors (8086, 8088, 8085, 8080).
All this backward compatibility is so painful and limiting. The 68k was launched in 1979 and it gets all of this right (32-bit addresses, general purpose registers), but the 8086 was launched in 1978 and it's so primitive and ugly.
It reminds me of Windows which even today has certain dumb features such as "\" being the path separator for compatibility with CP/M, some primitive relic of the 1970s. I understand the importance of backward compatibility for commercial success, but it's so ugly and I just don't want to have to deal with it decades later. Yes I know that the NT kernel can theoretically use a different path separator, but in practice, we're all still using \ for paths and / for command line options. Because CP/M was so incredibly great in 1975.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_3.0
Windows 3.0 arrived in 1990.
Which was a follow-up to Windows/386 2.0 released in 1987.
I guess the big difference is few people ever used Windows 2.x, even in its 8086 variant, and use of its 386 variant was even rarer. Whereas Windows 3.0 was widely adopted. And by the time Windows 3.0 came out, 386 machines had become much more common too
While Windows 3.0 had compatibility modes with earlier Windows versions, its native mode was designed for 80386, which allowed a completely different programming model, removing the annoying limitations of the older Windows versions.
Saying that Windows 3.0 was a follow-up is not really appropriate because it was a very different operating system, even if many APIs had remained as compatible as possible with the earlier Windows versions.
No, this is not true. Windows/386 2.0 (and 2.1 and 2.11) were specifically for the 80386 only. The other edition of Windows 2.x, Windows/286, was for 80286 (and despite its name suggesting it required a 286, it was supported on 8086 as well, albeit with fewer features)
> Saying that Windows 3.0 was a follow-up is not really appropriate because it was a very different operating system, even if many APIs had remained as compatible as possible with the earlier Windows versions.
Again, I don't see how this is true. Windows 3.0's 386 Enhanced Mode was a direct evolution of Windows/386 2.x.
It sounds like you are under the false impression that the 386-only mode was a new thing in Windows 3.0, when it wasn't, it was first introduced with Windows/386 2.0
That must have been either because Windows 2.x in general was not popular, or because before 1990 the computers with 80386 were too expensive.
What I know for sure is that since 1990 Windows 3.0 has become popular enough and most of its users were using the 386 mode, which removed the problems caused by memory relocation.
Before Windows 95, most serious work would still be done using MS-DOS programs, frequently using EMM386.SYS for upper memory access, but many also had Windows 3.x on their computers and were toying with it from time to time.
TI replaced this line with 68000-based UNIX, then sold their business computer systems line to HP.
http://www.home.unix-ag.org/engel/ti/
I think this was the 1300 motherboard.
https://theretroweb.com/motherboards/s/texas-instrument-syst...
In 1990, far away from USA, and where computers where relatively much more expensive, I have started to use a 80386DX-based PC/AT clone on which (besides MS-DOS), I have used two 386-specific operating systems, i.e. Windows 3.0 and SCO UNIX (a couple of years later I have also used on it other 386-specific OSes, e.g. IBM OS/2 2.0).
I agree that during its lifetime more 80386 users must have used MS-DOS than other operating systems, but already since 1990 there was a non-negligible number of users of 80386 in 32-bit mode, with Windows 3.0 and its successors.
Moreover, even many of the strictly MS-DOS users were using EMM386.SYS in order to access the memory above 1 MB within MS-DOS programs.
While EMM386.SYS does not count as a complete operating system, it was a program using 80386 in its 32-bit mode that was an essential part of MS-DOS after 1990, because already by 1990 most 80386 PCs had more than 1 MB of memory, with 2 MB typical for the cheapest and 4 MB typical for the more expensive.
286 protected modes, sure.
16-bit 8086, no way. difficulty of use did not hinder.
celebrating proper 32-bit protected modes, absolutely agree. but x86 was still well liked and used and was not the clunker that 286 was.
I never worked with the 80286, I pivoted to the i960 around 1992.
The shenanigans to get DOS machines to use more than 640k (which the application had to share with the OS and drivers!) are stuck in my memory.
We did not care about that then. Primarily because SMP and threads were simply not a thing. You might also note that any implementation of mmap(2) provides the exact same facility.
> permanently limited the architecture to one megabyte of addressable memory
It limited the generation. The architecture has obviously moved well past that. Now you can complain that though you have 64 bits only 48 are routed out to pins on your board.
> The shenanigans to get DOS machines to use more than 640k (which the application had to share with the OS and drivers!) are stuck in my memory.
hah. Program on a mainframe in 24bit mode sometime. That's a real treat.
https://safari.ethz.ch/architecture_seminar/spring2020/lib/e...
The other classic paper on the iAPX 432 is "A performance evaluation of the Intel iAPX 432". Coincidentally, one of the authors was my officemate at Berkeley. https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/641542.641545
So he earned forgiveness. :-)
Crazy to think of that now given how much their paths have diverged.
Few families had computers and -- as a kid -- the luckiest kids had Commodore 64s. I was the only kid -- out of 8 of my friends -- who's Dad insisted on having the same hardware at home that he had at work and he, like so many of that era, fell in love with Lotus 1-2-3[0]. I found it incredible that a nearly $4,000 (1985ish dollars) 8088 "generic clone" computer with ten times the RAM of a C64, 2 floppies and an RLL (?) HDD and "a real computer monitor" had a pretty abysmal collection of often terrible looking games available (it was the early days).
The most obnoxious part of this machine was, upon powering it on, it would count all of the memory, climbing in 64k steps, for a solid minute[1] while the jet engine that was a full-height RLL 10MB HDD[2]. Because this obnoxious boot time and the small shop's recommendation (likely because "this happened before") after the rapid demise of our HDD[2], my father elected to just leave the computer running 24x7, turning only the monitor off when not in use.
That machine (that I hated), though, became a pretty substantial part of (if not all of -- at times) my life from age 11 on. The 386 really was a revolution. With a VGA adapter and Sound Blaster (Compatible) you could spend an hour making a boot disk and eventually get a game with excellent graphics (for the era) to start without running out of memory below the 640k barrier.
We couldn't afford one so my Dad took the unconventional approach of starting a company and having me build PCs for neighbors, friends and eventually businesses to afford a top-of-the-line one. I had a 486DX/33 (top sku when I purchased it) PC with ... everything (even SCSI drives), a 16" SVGA monitor and laser printer a year later.
As a teenager I took a job at CompUSA[3] in hardware sales -- from about 1993-1997ish -- what an awesome time to work at a computer chain. I'll never forget the Windows 95 launch (after years of being promised a successor to WFW 3.11; even long enough for IBM to have a reasonable contender in OS/2). We had been receiving boxed (3.5" floppy and CD-ROM versions) of the software for weeks with an embargo[3]. We'd run promotions for the release day that involved staying open over-night. Somehow many members of the public were under an odd impression that "there might not be enough copies for everyone" and people actually started lining up around 10:30 at night. By midnight the line went all the way around the entire strip-mall (which could fit three CompUSA's worth) ... twice. The warehouse walls were floor-to-ceiling Windows 95 boxes, as were the tops of all of the aisle, the entire wall behind Customer Service, along with several large 5 foot tall 4-pallet wide stacks, several end caps and a few floor-to-ceiling shelves-worth, along with their "Power Pack". The store was surrounded in "blue." We had more RAM, Hard Drive and CD-ROM drive upgrades in the store than we'd ever had at one point in time at discounts that meant nearly everyone bought one of the three, many bought all of them. We played rock music on the speakers and watched Bill Gates with the cast of Friends from a CD-ROM displayed on the monitor wall.
That release at that time felt like a very large tipping point. Not just "there's something better than DOS that's mainstream" but with the local news regularly bringing up "The Information Super-Highway" and careers were increasingly requiring computer skills, by then the 8ish people I knew who owned computers became "half of my friends" (all from suburban middle-class families) owned recently purchased PCs. It was a unique thing to see. There were hundreds of people waiting in line. Unlike other situations where people "wait in line to buy something", this wasn't a Cabbage Patch Kid, concert tickets to a huge musical act's tour, or various Super Mario/Link cartridge games ... this was a boring operating system. One that I'd been running betas smuggled through "Elite" BBSes for probably a couple of years by then[4]. It was also well known by then that there was no shortage of the OS or the promos (we did run a few door-buster "first X people get Y for free" deals) but we'd never had more than maybe 25-30 people "waiting for the doors to open" during even the biggest promos outside of this. The composition of people, as well, was unique. Yeah, all but maybe four were guys. But it wasn't hundreds of "computer nerds" -- it was a pretty huge number of normal, average, middle-aged men of various ethnicities (we had an unusually high number of Korean individuals due to the location's racial make-up).
Summers were notoriously slow and usually saw a few bumps toward the end of August with "laptops becoming a school supply for college students" but that year, every weekend from the release of Windows 95 until the following summer seemed as busy as early-Christmas and this was in a location that was a half-mile from Computer City, Best Buy and Circuit City. Things started taking off like crazy owing mostly to "The Information Super-Highway" everyone kept reading about (and a half-decade later it was basically "over", with all computer-centered brick-and-mortar shops but Microcenter failing).
Intel, having gotten into a legal fight with AMD, went with Pentium branding and brought some of the best swag. I've got varieties of stuffed Intel "hazmat suit" toys and still have two Pentium key chains with the processor embedded in (apparently) Lucite. Their competitors vendor reps brought T-Shirts (and I still wear my Athlon64 "Power me Up" T-Shirt).
Crazy stuff ... fascinating how rapidly things apex, collapse and then just become part of every-day-life and the cycles get shorter and shorter. Intel had a few mis-steps here and there during that time (Pentium FDIV), but they were the king through most of my childhood. I now sit in a room with three high-end workstations. All are recent AMD processors.
[0] The company he owned also designed parts and was an early user of AutoCAD, so there was a profanity-infused evening involving my Dad installing an 8087 in that iron lung of a case.
[1] After about age 8, I could recite every number it displayed for a few seconds ... 64k, 128k, 192k, 256k, 320k, 384k, ... 576k, 640k
[2] One that I destroyed a few months after its purchase because I wanted to see what kinds of sounds it made if I turned it on, then off as it was spinning up, then immediately back on. It turns out that given a sufficient number of cycles, the kinds of sounds it makes is "none at all". It also turns out the number of cycles impressively low, like, maybe, five? Luckily, it was new enough for warranty replacement since nobody discovered my devious act.
[3] Including rewards if we caught a competitor selling a copy before the release date.
[4] I continued to run the final beta version I had downloaded because it was more stable than the GOLD version on my hardware ... I finally relented after the first service pack, I think.
These things existed? I never heart of them. I thought it was 14", 15", 17", and 21".
Honestly, I can't remember what the brand was, but I don't think it was the NEC. I remember I had sold a few 16" displays and had liked a cheaper model well enough to save the money. We tended to value larger monitors with higher resolutions at home (Dad had spreadsheets and AutoCAD), so we went through a few -- plus, at one point, "I worked at CompUSA" and it was hard to get them as cheap as "employee discount"[0] as a small-time re-seller.
But the huge deals, IIRC, were with the "strange vendor" -- the Nokia Display -- that was a huge solid Trinitron tube, the largest sporting a slightly higher refresh rate than ... anything else.
But they have a hard time selling because "Who's Nokia Display?" As this was pre-"digital mobile phone service" -- the "pagers are cool" days -- it was often "Nokia Who?". If you could catch the vendor when they swung by and grabbed the right form, they'd let you buy the top-of-the-line for like 75% off[1] which was substantially less than "employee discount." I know I picked up a monitor, a scanner and a US-Robotics modem, cheap, that way. :)
[0] We were told this was "cost" -- and that wasn't completely out of left field. I had a re-seller agreement with some of the same distributors and got worse pricing, pretty consistently, than I could get as an employee.
[1] Either in the form of "do this and ..." ("spiffs") or just "we'll give you a discount on exactly one" and depending on the vendor, this was "mail us a bunch of sh!t" and "we'll ship you one" or "we'll mail you a rebate check equivalent to the difference from what you paid" (assuming you paid MSRP or less). And make sure you make copies of everything :).