Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!oliveb!intelca!mipos3!omepd!mcg
From: mcg@omepd (Steven McGeady)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Is the Intel memory model safe from NO-ONE ?!?
Message-ID: <3450@omepd>
Date: 9 May 88 16:21:11 GMT
References: <1806@obiwan.mips.COM> <2904@omepd> <353@cf-cm.UUCP>
Reply-To: mcg@iwarpo3.UUCP (Steve McGeady)
Organization: Intel Corp., Hillsboro
Lines: 50
Keywords: 386 intel memory protection management model segmented


In article <353@cf-cm.UUCP> mch@computing-maths.cardiff.ac.uk (Major Kano) writes:
>   This is a partial reprint of an article that I posted in mid March. ...
>
>In article <2904@omepd> mcg@iwarpo3.UUCP (Steve McGeady) writes:
>>
>>It can't be elegance of design, for (e.g.) the 80386 and the MIPSco processor
>>are each somewhat inelegant in their own ways (for those who don't wish to
>>fill in the blanks, segmentation and register model in the former case,
>                     ^^^^^^^^^^^^              ^^^^^
>                     ** WHAT THE $@#@++%%& HELL ?!? **
>
>   Wow ! And I thought Ray Coles (writes for Practical Computing, a UK
>   Magazine) had it in for Intel !
>

After having taken the above quote completely out of context, Mr. Howe then
goes on to attempt to rekindle the justifiably extinct *86 memory model
discussion.

To set the record straight, yet again:

	1) I was not implying that there is anything wrong with the 80386
	   (or *86, for that matter) memory or register models, simply
	   that THERE MAY EXIST PEOPLE WHO BELIEVE that there is something
	   wrong.  That particular rhetorical distinction is apparently
	   lost on Mr. Kano.

	   The point, perhaps worth repeating, is that there are some people
	   who are as aesthetically offended by the exposure of the pipeline
	   in the MIPSco processors as others are offended by segmentation,
	   etc.

	2) The 80386 butters my bread, and will continue to do so for some
	   time.

	3) Even if Mr. Howe's inference were correct, which it is not, I do
	   not speak for Intel Corporation.  My views are my own, etc, and
	   often they are not even that, but temporarily adopted for
	   didactic discourse.

[Mr. Howe then descends into discourse on the merits of segmentation, which
I have no interest in addressing.]

As a final plea, it would be awfully nice if we could have a discussion on
the network that did not devolve into a semiconductor race war: my chip is
{bigger,faster,longer,stronger,prettier} than yours.  Yeesh.


S. McGeady
Intel Corp.