🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Nov11.164527.23898@exu.ericsson.se> exuhag@exu.ericsson.se writes:
>Now think about what the 486 is capable of.  There are very few
>people who need that sort of power.  It is mostly a marketing thing;
...
>wouldn't be so desperate for 486s.  A well-designed machine with
>properly balanced subsystems would be preferrable to a lackluster
>box with a screamingly fast CPU.
>

This is all true: however, the lackluster box is not the real problem.
Rather, its that the PC architecture is 10 years old, and is seriously
out of balance with the power of the 486. For example, I use my 486
primarily for games, and it (a 486-33) is only capable of running about
8 fps on Falcon 3.0 with all the options set to max detail. On Aces 
of the Pacific, it slows down and becomes jerkey on ground-attack
missions when there are buildings on fire.

Theoretically, is the 486-33 with a copy-back 256kb second level cache
fast enough to do the job well? Probably. But, when constrained with 
the aging ISA bus, the PC memory problem, that power is spent battling
the architecture (both h/w and s/w).


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Christopher Chow
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