Time to ROCK the boat.. It's almost 2000 ....------> R.I.P Micro$oft

[y***@gmail.com]

Right. and AFAIR, QDOS was a CP/M base. The MODs were by todays law,
illeagle and only barely leagle then, hence: "Rip-Off"

where do you get information that it was a cp/m ripoff? as i said
before, there were several cp/m compatible 8080/z80/8086 oses, some
of them were even multi-user. infosoft's I/OS is an example.

the pentium and friends are actually pretty respectable as far as
performance goes.

i should have added "given the antique ISA they have to support."

Not really. At least not from a design perspective! Xenon is just about
at the end of its gen. cycle.

you think the evil I won't continue to come out with faster and
faster x86 processors?

I'm less than impressed with the PowerPC.

G3 design spec is real pretty and the technology is at the beginning of it's
gen. cycle. transistor for transistor G3 in it current state is nearly two
times faster than Intel with a MUCH cleaner architecture!

i agree that it's a better architecture than the x86 family (which
pretty much is a big, fast Z80). but it's just plain WEIRD. i mean,
the bits are numbered backwards! :) and it's not cheap, even in
embedded versions (moto's 860 family, for example).

the MIPS stuff is much more sane.

I heard all further development on MIPS has been perm. discontinued!

that's interesting. i was in a meeting with sales reps for IDT (one of
several companies producing new MIPS cores) and they have extended plans
for faster and faster MIPS implementations. we're using two MIPS
processors in the current project at work. 120MHz processor (one
instruction per clock for every instruction, assuming things are in
cache, except multiply), two 8K caches, PCI controller, SDRAM
controller, two UARTs, 4 DMA channels for $22. that's twenty-two
dollars.
at least one of the super game machines (nintendo 64, i think) is a
MIPS machine.

- though I'm told the alpha people borrowed heavily from the MIPS
architecture.

I don't think this is correct but it is totally unimportant!

it's in a MIPS book i read recently.

incorrect. Microsoft's BASIC was one of the first (I'm tempted to
say THE first) basic interpreters for 8080 S100 machines.

Microsoft basic WAS a rip-&-port of a BASIC from another platform and was in
no way original (language wise) just re-written! I may even still have the
same code that MS started out with.
I could actually be wrong on this last point but I was very into the industry
from the mid 70s on, and this is my recollection.

what other platform?
find that source code you're talking about. (i think) i still have a few
printed fragments of basic-80 source that i was using as a reference for
my modifications for the microoffice roadrunner port. i could compare and
contrast for you.
--
// scott drysdale //
// amigas and panheads and guns, oh my!

Scott, Do you have Microoffice Roadrunner laptop computer?

[Gregory Allen]

Post by y***@gmail.com

Right. and AFAIR, QDOS was a CP/M base. The MODs were by todays law,
illeagle and only barely leagle then, hence: "Rip-Off"

where do you get information that it was a cp/m ripoff? as i said
before, there were several cp/m compatible 8080/z80/8086 oses, some
of them were even multi-user. infosoft's I/OS is an example.

the pentium and friends are actually pretty respectable as far as
performance goes.

i should have added "given the antique ISA they have to support."

Not really. At least not from a design perspective! Xenon is just about
at the end of its gen. cycle.

you think the evil I won't continue to come out with faster and
faster x86 processors?

I'm less than impressed with the PowerPC.

G3 design spec is real pretty and the technology is at the beginning of it's
gen. cycle. transistor for transistor G3 in it current state is nearly two
times faster than Intel with a MUCH cleaner architecture!

i agree that it's a better architecture than the x86 family (which
pretty much is a big, fast Z80). but it's just plain WEIRD. i mean,
the bits are numbered backwards! :) and it's not cheap, even in
embedded versions (moto's 860 family, for example).

the MIPS stuff is much more sane.

I heard all further development on MIPS has been perm. discontinued!

that's interesting. i was in a meeting with sales reps for IDT (one of
several companies producing new MIPS cores) and they have extended plans
for faster and faster MIPS implementations. we're using two MIPS
processors in the current project at work. 120MHz processor (one
instruction per clock for every instruction, assuming things are in
cache, except multiply), two 8K caches, PCI controller, SDRAM
controller, two UARTs, 4 DMA channels for $22. that's twenty-two
dollars.
at least one of the super game machines (nintendo 64, i think) is a
MIPS machine.

- though I'm told the alpha people borrowed heavily from the MIPS
architecture.

I don't think this is correct but it is totally unimportant!

it's in a MIPS book i read recently.

incorrect. Microsoft's BASIC was one of the first (I'm tempted to
say THE first) basic interpreters for 8080 S100 machines.

Microsoft basic WAS a rip-&-port of a BASIC from another platform and was in
no way original (language wise) just re-written! I may even still have the
same code that MS started out with.
I could actually be wrong on this last point but I was very into the industry
from the mid 70s on, and this is my recollection.

what other platform?
find that source code you're talking about. (i think) i still have a few
printed fragments of basic-80 source that i was using as a reference for
my modifications for the microoffice roadrunner port. i could compare and
contrast for you.
--
// scott drysdale //
// amigas and panheads and guns, oh my!

Scott, Do you have Microoffice Roadrunner laptop computer?

I think you may be around 15 years too late

[Ryan P.]

Post by Gregory Allen

Post by y***@gmail.com
Scott, Do you have Microoffice Roadrunner laptop computer?

I think you may be around 15 years too late

Although, it was an interesting little trip down memory lane. How we
were once excited about the coming 120MHz processors. :)

[Gregory Allen]

Post by Ryan P.

Post by Gregory Allen

Post by y***@gmail.com
Scott, Do you have Microoffice Roadrunner laptop computer?

I think you may be around 15 years too late

Although, it was an interesting little trip down memory lane. How we
were once excited about the coming 120MHz processors. :)

Aye, it was. I still use my old 386 laptop running OS/2 warp! How neive they were 15 years ago!