Date: Fri, 17 Nov 2000 21:56:20 -0700 From: Wes Peters <wes@softweyr.com> To: Terry Lambert <tlambert@primenet.com> Cc: Wilko Bulte <wkb@freebie.demon.nl>, John Baldwin <jhb@FreeBSD.ORG>, Poul-Henning Kamp <phk@FreeBSD.ORG>, arch@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: RANDOMDEV inspired realitycheck regarding i386/i486... Message-ID: <3A160BF4.1D05C638@softweyr.com> References: <200011151723.KAA12325@usr01.primenet.com>
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Terry Lambert wrote: > > > > > What is the consensus ? > > > > > > What is the current processor of choice for embedded stuff? Is > > > x86 even a good architecture for embedded work? That is the > > > only place that I would see the 386 still being alive... > > > > x86 has never been a good CPU for embedded. [eyes his trusty books > > collection for Motorola's 680x0 ;) ] > > The Motorola strategy is broken; the processor they are selling > for Palm Pilots has no MMU. It's no good for most embedded work > (and is barely good enough for making Palm Pilots unstable with > one single bad program). > > Cyrix, AMD, and various Card PCs are all 386-class CPUs. The > IBM "Blue Lightning" core is a 386 class core, which is used > to implement macrocell based embedded ASICs. Intel has two > 386 macrocells that are used for embedded work. I'd have to > say that not even the 80186 was dead yet... http://www.zflinux.com/ Embedded x86 for the masses. The Intel information appliance reference designs are great little boards, too, if a bit more pricey in eval form. ZFLinux has been quoting prices of ~ $300 - $400 for eval boards. -- "Where am I, and what am I doing in this handbasket?" Wes Peters Softweyr LLC wes@softweyr.com http://softweyr.com/ To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-arch" in the body of the message
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