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Your favorite cpu

Terry Yager said:
Pentium? Ain't that Greek...? Or Latin...?? Or...??? What's it mean?:confused:
--T
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You know... the one they put bugs in. That was another very clever marketing stragedy from Intel. They got great news coverage all over the world and by handling the situation in a unique way, they managed to keep people talking about it for a long time. Probably the most famous chip of all time. Just brilliant! :p
 
I also have to go wth the 68000. But I'm amazed that no one piped up for the Atari ST or even the Mac. The Amiga with it's Kickstart and awkward interface couldn't compare to the ease of use of the GEM GUI, with OS in ROM, 1 meg ram and midi capabilities. I have an Amga 3000 but my Mega-ST is a treat in comparsion. And the Atari Falcon obviously out-classes the Amiga and is still in use by many professional musician. The Amiga Toaster did raise the bar for most multimedia but was an expensive add-on.

As far as the greatest computer, the NEXT blew every one of them out of the water with it's UNIX OS and DSP sound interface. Just too costly however and sales never caught up to manufacturing costs.

Lawrence
 
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Micom 2000 said:
As far as the greatest computer, the NEXT blew every one of them out of the water with it's UNIX OS and DSP sound interface. Just too costly however and sales never caught up to manufacturing costs.

Lawrence
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NEXT lives on as OSX :D
 
I believe that the Intel 386 was the death blow to the Z80, and it really brought PC-type systems into the next era. The 68000 line did the same thing to the 6502. There are probably a million exceptions, this is just my general overall opinion.

i386 and 68000
 
billdeg said:
I believe that the Intel 386 was the death blow to the Z80...
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Yea, only in PCs though. Apparently that little wonder microprocessor is still going strong and can be found in many electronic boards of dedicated-use appliances/machines everywhere.

Tez
 
billdeg said:
I believe that the Intel 386 was the death blow to the Z80, and it really brought PC-type systems into the next era. The 68000 line did the same thing to the 6502. There are probably a million exceptions, this is just my general overall opinion.
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Besides, how many CPU chips beforehand were distributed as keychain fobs?
 
z80 forever

z80 forever

tezza said... little wonder microprocessor is still going strong and can be found in many electronic boards of dedicated-use appliances/machines
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Don't forget video games. Some arcade games used Z80's, the Sega Genesis used it as a I/O processor, and the Nintendo Gameboy used an "almost" Z80.

patscc
 
billdeg said:
I believe that the Intel 386 was the death blow to the Z80, and it really brought PC-type systems into the next era. The 68000 line did the same thing to the 6502. There are probably a million exceptions, this is just my general overall opinion.

i386 and 68000
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I tend to agree... :D
 
Overall, I'm going to have to go with the 68k. All the best machines in the 80s used those things...and let's face it, CISC just plain stinks.

My favourite x86 CPU is going to have to be the IBM Blue Lightning. Not the rebadged Cyrix, but the clock tripled 386DX with 16kb cache on steroids.
 
1st place - definitely Zilog Z80. :mrgreen:
2nd - Motorola MC68000
3rd - MOS 6510
4th - Intel i8080
5th - Motorola MC68EC020
 
gerrydoire said:
68000 is cisc, Power PC is risc, Apple switched to Intel not because the CPU was better or worse, it was because of the Intel Brand Name,

something called: M A R K E T I N G...

The CPU in a PS3 is far more sophisticated than anything we run windows or osx on!
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The CPU in a PS3 is more closely related (in architecture) to a modern GPU. For general purpose computations (e.g. desktop computing, database servers, etc.), it is actually not very efficient.

I was a fan of the Power architecture, but let's get real. The Core/Core 2 evolution from the old Pentium III is very well thought out and plain fast.

Apple switched for several reasons, not a single one as it's being mentioned here. One of them was supply. IBM was simply not equipped to supply the demand that Apple was hoping for their systems. IBM has been developing new versions of the Power platform for some time, so I don't necessarily believe the reason they went with the Core/Core 2 was due to IBM's unwillingness to revise the architecture.

The MOST important reason why Apple switched was cost. This doesn't immediately translate to lower performance, it's just that Intel pushes more CPUs out the door than IBM does, and, with the smaller micron size manufacturing process, the cost:performance ratio was just a no-brainer choosing the Core platform.

My favorite processor of all time is the R10K.

A second favorite is the R5K.

Then the Pentium Pro, just because the chip itself was so massive and intimidating looking. :cool:
 
patscc said:
Actually, what I heard was Apple switched because IBM didn't want design a new generation for Apple if Jobs was only going to pay peanuts for it.

patscc
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Well as Steve Jobs once said, IBM is the enemy.... Big Brother and all that crapola :rolleyes:
 
Mine is a split between the Z-80 and the 6502.

Never, never MANUALLY disassemble an Apple II game, if you like the game that is. I spent around 6 months, off and on, spending time in the back room at work, after the shift was over, manually disassembling Space Invaders. I figured out where the graphics where stored, how they were rendered, what most of the calls did. I was totally totally sick of that game by the time I had most of it figured out. It was more than 15 years until I again was able to play the game.

I had one of those HUGE posters of a super closeup of the 8080A cpu on my wall for a long time. I can still disassemble some Z-80 code from memory, almost like reading braille. The REP and LXI ones I am fairly weak on, so I do studder as I go thru the machine code.
 
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