From owner-freebsd-arch Wed Nov 15 10:21: 5 2000 Delivered-To: freebsd-arch@freebsd.org Received: from post.mail.nl.demon.net (post-11.mail.nl.demon.net [194.159.73.21]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3A65A37B4C5; Wed, 15 Nov 2000 10:21:02 -0800 (PST) Received: from [212.238.54.101] (helo=freebie.demon.nl) by post.mail.nl.demon.net with smtp (Exim 3.14 #4) id 13w7B6-000HT9-00; Wed, 15 Nov 2000 18:21:01 +0000 Received: (from wkb@localhost) by freebie.demon.nl (8.11.1/8.11.0) id eAF6OZO01961; Wed, 15 Nov 2000 07:24:35 +0100 (CET) (envelope-from wkb) Date: Wed, 15 Nov 2000 07:24:35 +0100 From: Wilko Bulte To: Terry Lambert Cc: John Baldwin , Poul-Henning Kamp , arch@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: RANDOMDEV inspired realitycheck regarding i386/i486... Message-ID: <20001115072435.E1321@freebie.demon.nl> References: <20001114075729.G333@freebie.demon.nl> <200011151723.KAA12325@usr01.primenet.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.2i In-Reply-To: <200011151723.KAA12325@usr01.primenet.com>; from tlambert@primenet.com on Wed, Nov 15, 2000 at 05:23:26PM +0000 X-OS: FreeBSD 4.2-BETA X-PGP: finger wilko@freebsd.org Sender: owner-freebsd-arch@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Wed, Nov 15, 2000 at 05:23:26PM +0000, 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). I could not care less about Palmpilots to be honest. Not an embedded application by my standards btw. > 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... Sure, macrocells are used quite often. -- Wilko Bulte Arnhem, the Netherlands wilko@freebsd.org http://www.freebsd.org http://www.nlfug.nl To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-arch" in the body of the message