On Sun, May 20, 2012 at 4:05 PM, Jon Elson <el...@pico-systems.com> wrote: > dave wrote: >> The 32016 was a good design as far as I could tell. Orthogonal >> instruction set, 8 sets of registers, etc. I understand that National >> simply didn't give much support. Most of the boards were VME bus. >> The chip seemed to get used more in Europe than here. >> > National Semi never was good at support of these complex products. The > machine I had (I built a clone of the LMC system) had no cache, and ran on a > 16 > MHz clock, I think. I think it could have used a cache pretty badly. I > think also > the MMU caused a significant slowdown. Basically it was supposed to be a VAX > on > a chip, but the DEC MicroVAX-II ran rings around it in virtual > addressing mode. > I don't really know if the file system or the multibus-disk controller > was what really made it slow, but it was a bit of a disappointment.
Not to mention the fact that they acquired a reputation for long-unfixed bugs and difficult interfacing http://www.os.4uj.org/16032.htm. Still, it was a nice design and a pity that NS didn't succeed in the effort to match its excellent analog products with a digital computer line. They of course ended up acquired by Texas Instruments last year. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Live Security Virtual Conference Exclusive live event will cover all the ways today's security and threat landscape has changed and how IT managers can respond. Discussions will include endpoint security, mobile security and the latest in malware threats. http://www.accelacomm.com/jaw/sfrnl04242012/114/50122263/ _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
