🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <edm.724366309@wrs.com> edm@wrs.com (Ed McClannahan) writes:

>   The jist I got was that NeXTstep wants to maintain compatible File
>   Systems between 680X0 and X86 platforms.  To do this, they needed
>   to do a lot of byte swapping on the X86 platforms.  Since the 486
>   has a simple instruction to do it while the 386 does not, NeXT
>   just went with the 486.

This would explain why they chose to require the 486 instruction set.
It does not explain why NeXT Step 486 won't run on the Cyrix 486DLC,
which *has* the BSWAP instruction, like an Intel 486.

>   I think their justification was that you needed the horsepower of
>   the 486 to run NeXTstep anyway - atleast when you only look at X86
>   processors from Intel!  This assumption (of only considering
>   Intel's product line) may, indeed, be the real culprit as I think
>   the Cyrix ne-486 is quite capable of running NeXTstep from a
>   performance perspective.

If the Intel 486SX-25 is powerful enough, then the Cyrix 486DLC-40
certainly is, even considering the smaller cache.
-- 
Richard Krehbiel                                 richk@grebyn.com
OS/2 2.0 will do for me until AmigaDOS for the 386 comes along...