🚀 go-pugleaf

I just got back from a briefing given by a guy named Augustine
who was identified as an "intel architect from the last 15 years".
He said that he had been involved with the design and rollout of 
every x86 chip since the stone age.  He had the usual intel fluff info,
but was very helpful in describing a lot of topics.  He discussed the
"environmental computer" projects, the Overdrive chip, the entire
intel architecture and the future of intel projects.  He introduced 
the iComp average and showed the performance numbers that were posted
here a couple of notes ago.  Here were some high (and low) lights of
his briefing (all on his words... not guarantees):

* the Pentium(tm) will be released in this quarter of 1993.  He has seen
  a working Pentium system with DOS/Windows/Lotus Display software running
  last year (in July).  Systems with a Pentium/PCI architecture will be
  available by mid-year.  The cheapest Pentium systems will be around 
  $5000.

* the Pentium will have a 64-bit path.  The chip design is as follows:
     
  20% for FPU (a significant increase to put the Pentium on the same
      math level as workstations.  Much faster FPU)
  15% for Superscalar pipelines/architecture
  10% for x86 compatibility
  20% for on board cache
  10% for connecting to the system
  15% for other stuff.

* iComp was designed to stomp out the 386 chips (my opinion) and their
  clones.  The 486SX20 shows up worse than the 386DX by this standard. 

* The pentium can execute 2 instructions simultaneously (code willing)
  and two pentium processors can work concurrently for something he
  called "non-stop" computing which will include error trapping between
  the two.  

* Compilers for the Pentium were written 1-1.5 years ago and will be   
  available.  The optimization done on these compilers will improve
  i486 performance by about 8%.  The were written to take full advantage
  of the superscalar architecture of the Pentium and the compilers were
  given away to software vendors.

* i486/66DX2 systems with the P24 socket (Pentium upgradeable) will be
  available in the next month (should beat the Pentium systems out, 
  but not necessarily).  Intel is now dedicated to fixing the pin    
  structure of the next generation architecture when the current generation
  chip is released.  Therefore, the pin set of the P6 will be set when the
  Pentium comes out.

There were a lot of other questions and answers, and if anyone has any
that may have been asked, I will try to answer them.  The guy would not
release any speed or Mflops info, but did say that it was 5-7 times faster
than the current architecture.  Literature that he passed out indicated that
Intel wants to have 100 million transistor chips by the year 2000 with full
x86 compatibility.

later

*ice*
  have been released to all the software companies.  Th
  
  delay