CompuServe Messages

Phillip, PMFJI, but I have to disagree in some points. >> … the 1990 pc or mac wouldn't run todays software, this for a pc is >> true … This is true for the Amiga, too. I can't run today's AGA software on my stock A2000, and it isn't upgradable, either. >> As it is, each time they (Intel) produced a major advance you needed to >> learn another processor. 8086, 80286 and 80386 are all programmed >> differently It's the same thing or even worse with the motorola processors 68000, 68020+68851+68881, 68030+68882, and 68040. So what's the point ? >> if they had implemented a flat memory model in the first place ( like >> motorola did ) then windows 95 would run on an 8086 Well, the 8086 ist a very old processor, and it _had_ a flat memory model, that was 64 K in size. In that time, most other processors were 8 bit only, and you had to swap 64 K banks around using the hardware and interrupts. Remember the C= 64/128, C= PET/4032/4064, C= 610/710 ? So the 6086 was an improvement, because you could switch segments by software. Sure, Intel could have made a new processor not downwards compatible to the 8086. But the marketplace didn't want that, because all the software that already existed, like accounting packages, payroll, etc. would have to be rewritten. Much less users would have upgraded if they had to install and let all their employees learn to handle new software. So the hardware and software upgrades were decoupled and divided into different subjects. The effect was, that each subject has dynamically stimulated the other. – wkc – … via AP from Hamburg, Germany