bigmessowires
Well-known member
In Wikipedia's article about the PowerPC family, I noticed this about the 603:
This makes it sound like the plain 603 (non-e version) basically can't run the 680x0 emulation layer, but if that's the case, how did Apple use the 603 in computers like the Performa 5200 and 6200 series? Is that why those computers have a reputation for being dog slow? Is the 603 really slower than the 601 that preceded it? If so, my Performa 6200/75 here is sad.
Apple tried to use the 603 in a new laptop design but was unable due to the small 8 KB level 1 cache. The 68000 emulator in the Mac OS could not fit in 8 KB and thus slowed the computer drastically. The 603e solved this problem by having a 16 KB L1 cache, which allowed the emulator to run efficiently.
This makes it sound like the plain 603 (non-e version) basically can't run the 680x0 emulation layer, but if that's the case, how did Apple use the 603 in computers like the Performa 5200 and 6200 series? Is that why those computers have a reputation for being dog slow? Is the 603 really slower than the 601 that preceded it? If so, my Performa 6200/75 here is sad.