Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!pacbell!ames!ll-xn!mit-eddie!uw-beaver!tektronix!tekcrl!tekgvs!toma
From: toma@tekgvs.TEK.COM (Tom Almy)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Intel 386SX chip & its applications
Message-ID: <3617@tekgvs.TEK.COM>
Date: 22 Jun 88 13:41:43 GMT
References: <206900116@prism>
Reply-To: toma@tekgvs.UUCP (Tom Almy)
Organization: Tektronix, Inc., Beaverton,  OR.
Lines: 25

In article <206900116@prism> john@prism.TMC.COM writes:
>
>I've just been reading about the new 386SX chip, or "P9", as it has 
>been referred to.  [...]
>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?  

The word I got (from an Intel employee) is that it is a 16 bit (external) bus
version of the 386, but is not pin compatible with the 286.  Expect some 
companies to come out with daughter boards that plug into the 286 socket which
have the 386sx, some PALs, and probably a socket for the 387sx.

>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.  

If that *was* the original intent.  It can also be viewed as a way to build a
lower cost (and performance) 80386 system, much like the purpose of using an
8088 instead of an 8086.

Tom Almy
toma@tekgvs.TEK.COM

Usual disclaimers apply