Did you know that Intel is still manufacturing 386 and 486 microprocessors?

[getbush]

Didn't the whole copyright thing get huge extensions since like '94 or so thanks to the RIAA and such? I think that's where the 70 year BS came from.

 

[Googer]

Originally posted by: getbush
Didn't the whole copyright thing get huge extensions since like '94 or so thanks to the RIAA and such? I think that's where the 70 year BS came from.

No. It has always been that way.


http://news.wvpubcast.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=1025278

EDIT: The Walt Disney Company was the pusher for the 1998 copyright extension law. They watend to reap some extra dough from Walt's early cartoons that were set to expire a just a few years later (maybe circa 2005?). Walt died in the Mid 60's so this woud allow the company to reap some extra money on his earliest works untill about 2015-ish.

 

[JEDI]

Originally posted by: Random Variable
The 386 has been in production for 20 years, while the 486 has been in production for 17 years. They're still being used in embedded systems. Production will end next year, though.

WTF?! who uses/buys 386 + 486 nowadays?

 

[Googer]

Originally posted by: JEDI

Originally posted by: Random Variable
The 386 has been in production for 20 years, while the 486 has been in production for 17 years. They're still being used in embedded systems. Production will end next year, though.

WTF?! who uses/buys 386 + 486 nowadays?

Embedded systems like the NASA Space Shuttle or a handheld scientific calculator. I have an Intel branded print server from about 3 years ago that is based on an Intel 486. It works much faster than many of the competitors of the day. Even to this day it is a pretty swift device. They aren't used in PC's anymore but there are still tons of uses for older x86 design processors.

Except in my belief NETBURST will be one of those processor deigns that wont ever see any sort of extended life outside of socket 478/775 like other x86 chips enjoy.

 

[Zolty]

Originally posted by: StrangerGuy
How much faster is a Core 2 X6800 over a 486 33MHz?

A lot

 

[FelixDeCat]

Originally posted by: getbush
Didn't the whole copyright thing get huge extensions since like '94 or so thanks to the RIAA and such? I think that's where the 70 year BS came from.

I remember Disney pushing that 70 year BS. Their argument was "well if we dont do this, you will see Micky Mouse being used by the porn industry!!" :roll:

Oh, and dont be confused. When the 70 year date comes around you can bet your parents farm Disney will bring up the same argument and bribe as many people as it takes to make it 7000 years from the date of death. :roll:

Im not going to mention how much I hate this, because I would think it already shows. Derivative works make this country great.

 

[Googer]

Originally posted by: Zolty

Originally posted by: StrangerGuy
How much faster is a Core 2 X6800 over a 486 33MHz?

A lot

486 processors went all the way to 100MHz in a DX4 form. Comparing a 100MHz 486 to a e6300 is like compairing a Core 2 Extreme to a modern Cray Supercomputer. Teraflops vs Gigaflops.

A modern Core 2 Duo has more computational power than supercomputers of the 1970's and Cray Supercomputers of the Mid 80's.

A typical 486 was capable of 10 Megaflops
A typical Superscaler Pentium 1 (100MHz) was capable of 100 megaflops.
A typical AMD K6-2 333MHz is capable of 1.33333 gigaflops
A typical (single core) 2.5GHz G5 Mac is capable of 19.5 gigaflops
A typical Core 2 Duo is (rumored at this point) is said to have 29 gigaflops of calculating power.

All the above statisitics are for single threads. Due to sketchy information at this point Core 2 Duo may be the exception to that rule. I dont know if those numbers are for one core or two. Single core would probably be the best way to gauge processing power of mulitcore chips.

An ATi x1900XT has an estamated 100 or more gigaflops of computational ability.

It will be just a few more years before major mulit-core paralleization brings us into the 1 teraflop range.

An interesting read on the topic of relative computing power.

 

[Googer]

11.8 TERAflop supercomputer

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/136634_computer26.html

 

[Rubycon]

Originally posted by: StrangerGuy
How much faster is a Core 2 X6800 over a 486 33MHz?

I tried running a program called CheckIT that only recognizes i486 class cpu's and it gave some interesting results for CPU up until AMD's X64 and Intel's CORE processors. It now shows negative numbers instead of "Genuine Intel(r) i486DX at 12337 MHz.

 

[Googer]

Originally posted by: MS Dawn

Originally posted by: StrangerGuy
How much faster is a Core 2 X6800 over a 486 33MHz?

I tried running a program called CheckIT that only recognizes i486 class cpu's and it gave some interesting results for CPU up until AMD's X64 and Intel's CORE processors. It now shows negative numbers instead of "Genuine Intel(r) i486DX at 12337 MHz.

There's your answer, Core 2 Duo = 12,000MHz 486!

 

[imported_Baloo]

386 processors are also used in industrial applications for machine controllers.

 

[Random Variable]

Originally posted by: 91TTZ

Originally posted by: Random Variable
It sounds like the 186 has been heavily modified since it was relased in 1980, while the 386 and 486 haven't been modified much at all.

You're really trying now.

All of them have been heavily modified since their release. The case for the 186 is no different than the case for the 386 and 486. All of them have had die shrinks, process revisions, tweaked cores to run more efficiently, etc.

The version of the 386 that's out now is a low power embedded version that was introduced a full 8 years after the 386 first came out. It has evolved over time to meet market demands just like the 186 has.

Just admit that you're wrong instead of trying to fabricate excuses.

All I said is that Wiki claimed that the 186 wasn't still in production. I didn't say that I knew for a fact that it wasn't still in production. Chill out. :|

 

[Steve]

Originally posted by: Paddington
I took a class with Steve Squyres at Cornell. He's in charge of the Mars Rover project.

He said that most technology (from CPUs to cameras) used in satellites is from the early 1990's or even late 1980's. One reason is that takes years for these devices to get to their destinations and be tested on the ground.

Also, the radiation up in space is so intense that clunky old tech with bigger transistors is often better able to handle it than today's latest and greatest microprocessors.

I imagine it would be easier to keep these classic chips cool in space rather than modern gigahertz beasts. Perhaps power draw is a factor as well?

 

[ed21x]

i believe all the ti's up to the 86 used the z80 processor before TI changed to Motorolla 68k processors for the 89. 68k processors are awesome for running Assembly, and was one of the reasons a 33 mhz Macintosh could outperform a 166 mhz Pentium Pro on similar applications. embedded systems are mainly used on low-power simple tasks such as the ARM processor in flash drives, where reliability is more important than complexity.