New Computer
This message turned up in search, but its forum couldn’t be identified from the original transcript, so it may not be linked into its thread.
Don't assume that a 65816 running at 2.5MHz is slower than a 68000 at 7.16MHz
— the 65816 uses many fewer clock cycles per instruction. (You'd have to look
at instruction set references for both to get an idea of the actual difference,
but at a guess, they are probably about equal). The 65816 CPU is much less
>powerful<, though — less registers, weaker instruction set. Offsetting the
lower number of registers is the availability of the "zero page", 256 bytes of
RAM that can be accessed with a 1-byte address. Unlike the 6502, the 65816 can
reassign the zero page, so there are really an unlimited number of semi-fast
registers (256 for each process, e.g., in a multitasking environment). It's
not in CPU speed that the Amiga beats the IIgs, but in graphics power
(blitter/copper) and multitasking. The IIgs' sound may be better than the
Amiga's. I think it will turn out to be "more of the same" — the same quality
as the Amiga's, but more voices at once. – Bela