On Tue, Jan 24, 2017 at 3:27 PM, Chuck Guzis <[email protected]> wrote:
> Somewhere along the line, Intel's much ballyhooed 432 platform quietly > sank under the waves (Micro-mainframe). It was a multi-chip set and > hideously expensive. > It actually wasn't *that* expensive. Well, the development system was hideously expensive, but the chips weren't. The General Data Processor (GDP, the "main" processor) was two chips, which together cost about $100 in modest quantities, and the Interface Processor (IP, an I/O channel interface that worked in conjunction with a 8-bit or 16-bit microprocessor) was about $50. While that's a lot more expensive than an 8088, it was supposed to be a high-end processor, not a low-end processor like the 8088. It's more appropriate to compare it to the early pricing of the 80286 with 80287. What killed the 432 wasn't that it was expensive, but that it was extremely slow. Few people would have wanted it even if Intel sold it for $5.
