From: utzoo!decvax!genradbo!grkermit!marks
Newsgroups: net.micro.68k
Title: Re: 68k vs. 8086 - (nf)
Article-I.D.: grkermit.295
Posted: Tue Feb 15 09:52:50 1983
Received: Thu Feb 17 19:03:29 1983
References: ucbcad.601

	As for the INTEL claims of 2:1 speed advantage over 68000:
it depends. What speed 8086/80186/80286 vs 68000 do you regard
as normal?

	However, the 8086 instruction set does turn out to be rather
more bit efficient than the 68000's for the cases the 8086 can
handle. Notably, 64K max address space needed for any single purpose,
most operations involving characters or simple 16bit integer arithmitic,
not much in the way of pointers, arrays, etc. AND the 8086 has a
very nice floating point chip.
	One can, for instance, write very good BASIC interpreters for
the 8086.

	The 8086's trouble is that compilers have a lot of trouble generating
good code for it and its limits get hit very early in a lot of new
applications.  INTEL keeps saying, quite correctly, "Hey, guys, the
8086 is better at the things all micros can do."  To which the general
reply outside the "commodity PC market" is "but we can't afford to do
new things on it."  In short, "technically obsolete."
	(Cheer up INTEL: DEC hears the same things about the PDP-11, which
has a much nicer architecture.)

			Mark Swanson
	...decvax!genradbolton!gkermit!marks