Reply to post: Re: MIDI Maze!

A brand new Linux DRM display driver – for a 1992 computer

nautica Silver badge
Boffin

Re: MIDI Maze!

This is as close as I've come to confirmation of the informed speculation (of the day) that, because the 68oXo was a microprogrammed design--as opposed to the random-logic design of the 8086--IBM was in talks with Motorola to create an IBM 360/370-on-a-chip, based on the 68XXX.

Makes imminent sense with a 4 GB flat address space, and (68020's) 32-bit ALU and data bus. From the 68020 onward, it really is a 32-bit machine.

Contrast this with Intel's bastardized segment:offset method of memory addressing which was--and IS--so convoluted that, by the time the 80286 arrived, Intel had to resort to its memory addressing being relegated to emulation in software.

Seems as though IBM should have listened to its engineers, and not to its bean-counters.

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