Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!bloom-beacon!gatech!mcnc!ecsvax!gas
From: gas@ecsvax.uncecs.edu (Guerry A. Semones)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Intel 386SX chip & its applications
Summary: Intel 386SX (P9) chip as replacement for 286....
Message-ID: <5310@ecsvax.uncecs.edu>
Date: 22 Jun 88 17:45:30 GMT
References: <206900116@prism>
Organization: UNC Educational Computing Service
Lines: 26

In article <206900116@prism>, john@prism.TMC.COM writes:
> 
> Maybe I'm totally wrong on this, but isn't this the version of the 386 chip 
> that you can just pop into a 286 socket and blast off at near-386 speed 
> and performance?  And if so, wouldn't the obvious thing that everyone 
> would like to do be to buy one for their AT?  Why build NEW systems 
> around the thing?  If all the chips being produced are going into new 
> systems, it will be hard or impossible to buy one for the purpose it was 
> intended for originally -- upgrading from 286.  


     A lot of us have been following the rumors about the 386SX or P9
chip for quite a little while now.  If what I have read is true, the
P9 is NOT pin-compatible with the 286.  If the other rumors I heard are
true, then it seems that all you would need is for some smart(?)
company to produce a wafer-board that IS pin-compatible with the 286
socket and then mount the P9 on the wafer-board - hence a drop-in 
replacement for your 286.
     I'll leave it to the more technically-wise to say whether the
16 mhz P9 will operate in some of the older 6, 8 mhz AT's.

-- 
 Guerry A. Semones              BITNET: drogo@tucc.BITNET
 Information Services           USENET: gas@ecsvax.UUCP, semones@dukeac.UUCP
 Duke University                My views are despairingly mine only.
 Talent Identification Program  "We ain't gifted, we just work here."