From owner-freebsd-arch Fri Nov 17 20:54:51 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-arch@freebsd.org Received: from homer.softweyr.com (bsdconspiracy.net [208.187.122.220]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 0137E37B479; Fri, 17 Nov 2000 20:54:49 -0800 (PST) Received: from [127.0.0.1] (helo=softweyr.com ident=Fools trust ident!) by homer.softweyr.com with esmtp (Exim 3.16 #1) id 13x032-0000Bu-00; Fri, 17 Nov 2000 21:56:20 -0700 Message-ID: <3A160BF4.1D05C638@softweyr.com> Date: Fri, 17 Nov 2000 21:56:20 -0700 From: Wes Peters Organization: Softweyr LLC X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.75 [en] (X11; U; Linux 2.2.12 i386) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 To: Terry Lambert Cc: Wilko Bulte , John Baldwin , Poul-Henning Kamp , arch@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: RANDOMDEV inspired realitycheck regarding i386/i486... References: <200011151723.KAA12325@usr01.primenet.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: owner-freebsd-arch@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG 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