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Trash80toHP_Mini
NIGHT STALKER
We may be getting a little far afield her, but it's pretty much in the lamed CC vein.
Not really, Motorola made no equivalent of the 386SX for lower end systems. The 386SX was a full 386, but cut off at the knees with 16bit data/24bit address buses on the package itself. It was very much on the model of
the M68000:
Wikepedia 68000: The design implements a 32-bit instruction set, with 32-bit registers and a 32-bit internal data bus. The address bus is 24-bits and does not use memory segmentation, which made it popular with programmers. Internally, it uses a 16-bit data arithmetic logic unit (ALU) and two more 16-bit ALUs used mostly for addresses,[2] and has a 16-bit external data bus.[3] For this reason, Motorola termed it a 16/32-bit processor.
Wikipedia 386SX: In 1988, Intel introduced the 80386SX, most often referred to as the 386SX, a cut-down version of the 80386 with a 16-bit data bus mainly intended for lower-cost PCs aimed at the home, educational, and small-business markets, while the 386DX remained the high-end variant used in workstations, servers, and other demanding tasks. The CPU remained fully 32-bit internally, but the 16-bit bus was intended to simplify circuit-board layout and reduce total cost. The 16-bit bus simplified designs but hampered performance. Only 24 pins were connected to the address bus, therefore limiting addressing to 16 MB, but this was not a critical constraint at the time. Performance differences were due not only to differing data-bus widths, but also due to performance-enhancing cache memories often employed on boards using the original chip.
Apple was stuck with pure 32/32 bit equivalents of the 386DX. They were forced to lame computers on the Logic Board and in ROM. 68020SX and 68030SX CPU availability would have precluded LEM's denigration of 32bit systems lamed in such a manner as RoadApples. Anyone buying a Moto SX equivalent Mac would have known from the start what they were buying, a low price if limited Mac.
The 386SX system I built specifically to run CorelDraw had 16MB of RAM and CoPro for that processor/numeric operations intensive app. I was perfectly happy with my choices. But had the reverse been the case with me being a PC guy on that same limited budget it would have been very different. Had a game changing, type and vector graphics app been released for the Mac only, I would have been forced much overspend to buy a lamed 32bit Mac. I'd have soon have agreed my "Limited" 32bit Mac was a Roadapple as well.
It really is all in the way you look at it: I never needed more than the three slots available in the low profile case I chose, but a taller case would have had more. What those three slots held would have been built into a low end Mac with its single expansion slot, but the perceived value of "more" expansion slots was entirely lost on Apple marketing.
Not really, Motorola made no equivalent of the 386SX for lower end systems. The 386SX was a full 386, but cut off at the knees with 16bit data/24bit address buses on the package itself. It was very much on the model of
the M68000:
Wikepedia 68000: The design implements a 32-bit instruction set, with 32-bit registers and a 32-bit internal data bus. The address bus is 24-bits and does not use memory segmentation, which made it popular with programmers. Internally, it uses a 16-bit data arithmetic logic unit (ALU) and two more 16-bit ALUs used mostly for addresses,[2] and has a 16-bit external data bus.[3] For this reason, Motorola termed it a 16/32-bit processor.
Wikipedia 386SX: In 1988, Intel introduced the 80386SX, most often referred to as the 386SX, a cut-down version of the 80386 with a 16-bit data bus mainly intended for lower-cost PCs aimed at the home, educational, and small-business markets, while the 386DX remained the high-end variant used in workstations, servers, and other demanding tasks. The CPU remained fully 32-bit internally, but the 16-bit bus was intended to simplify circuit-board layout and reduce total cost. The 16-bit bus simplified designs but hampered performance. Only 24 pins were connected to the address bus, therefore limiting addressing to 16 MB, but this was not a critical constraint at the time. Performance differences were due not only to differing data-bus widths, but also due to performance-enhancing cache memories often employed on boards using the original chip.
Apple was stuck with pure 32/32 bit equivalents of the 386DX. They were forced to lame computers on the Logic Board and in ROM. 68020SX and 68030SX CPU availability would have precluded LEM's denigration of 32bit systems lamed in such a manner as RoadApples. Anyone buying a Moto SX equivalent Mac would have known from the start what they were buying, a low price if limited Mac.
The 386SX system I built specifically to run CorelDraw had 16MB of RAM and CoPro for that processor/numeric operations intensive app. I was perfectly happy with my choices. But had the reverse been the case with me being a PC guy on that same limited budget it would have been very different. Had a game changing, type and vector graphics app been released for the Mac only, I would have been forced much overspend to buy a lamed 32bit Mac. I'd have soon have agreed my "Limited" 32bit Mac was a Roadapple as well.
It really is all in the way you look at it: I never needed more than the three slots available in the low profile case I chose, but a taller case would have had more. What those three slots held would have been built into a low end Mac with its single expansion slot, but the perceived value of "more" expansion slots was entirely lost on Apple marketing.
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Is there literally anyone who didn't? I can't imagine global coverage was these was any different than MacWorld's was here in the US and MacWorld was extremely explicit about what you were getting every single time Apple did anything like this. Despite it, they liked the CII, IIvx/IIvi/P600, 630, and so on, because even though they were limited compared to higher end pro oriented systems, they represented reasonably good value for money. They included benchmarks each time and so if you were doing any research at all on your new computer, you were doing what you did with your eyes wide open.
I can sort of see it maybe happening in the P200/400/600 scenario, but even then computer magazines offered frequent showdowns and would have documented that issue, and, TBH, those models were basically all designed explicitly with "home users who probably aren't running Mathematica or Photoshop" in mind.
Unless what you mean is that all the 16-bit-bus Macs were well documented as being so. (They were.)
To be honest, I don't know that I see this as a very important distinction. They stuck an '030 onto an '020 platform, which was literally exactly what the 386SX was for. That Apple did it in-house and Intel did it for the PC OEMs is mostly just a matter of the fact that Motorola didn't see the need to build that as a dedicated SKU. Apple would have bought them if they could.
Idly, how much did that cost?
No it wouldn't have. (Almost, just to be safe) Nobody writing LEM ever bothered to know what was actually in a system or consider why it was built the way it was.
Trash80toHP_Mini
NIGHT STALKER
Dunno offhand, but I could take a look in the ancient files to see if I could patch it together? But it was a lot less than a low end Mac. I had the 386SX build with CorelDraw Box sitting next to it ready and waiting for the first day release of Win 3.0. I think that was the only time I ever bought an OS before the bugfix rev. It was wonderful! SCSI Drive's Card and the Serial/Printed/Hercules graphics card pair did what needed to be done. Never even bothered to hook up the Mac-to-PC QuickSCSI setup. That was a minimalist network between PC and Mac over SCSI with a drive partition for the Mac on the PC HDD setup. I'd planned to move it over, but it stayed in the Tandy 1000SX fax machine workhorse with its JT FAX card. I think I still have the QuickSCSI card, sure wish I could find the drivers for it. Never made it through the System 7 mess, 6.0.8 only. :mellow:
So I had an open slot given that nifty multi-function I/O card. Herc at 720x348 with simulated grayscale beat the SE's lousy B&W 512 x 342 pixel resolution hands down. But it was far less satisfying than the 19" PanaPro's B&W TPD setup when I finally got my used IIx. By then AI and FreeHand had caught up and CorelDraw was coming cross platform.
Ya gotta go with what you need when you need it. But it still mystifies me why anyone ever felt they needed a bone stock CC. :
Might have, one might hope anyway? But nobody really knew much of anything at LEM in the day. Still can't get over CL not understanding why VERY High End, QuickDraw Accelerated NuBus Cards didn't outperform built in Video within that very limited performance envelope and why. Silly stuff ran rampant over there, but some really good stuff wound up on the site anyway.
Methinks this is just about as far afield as this comparison needs to go. :?:
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johnklos
Well-known member
There were 24 bit address versions of the m68020, like the m68EC020 in the Amiga 1200. Aside from the slight benefit of having it in a physically smaller package for mass production, there was no benefit to the idea of an "SX" version of either the '020 or '030 because they both supported dynamic bus sizing. You can easily use either on an 8 bit data bus, if you were so inclined, and that's exactly how Apple made machines with 16 bit data busses.
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