On Mar 26, 2010, at 8:45 AM, Lamar Owen wrote:
On Wednesday 24 March 2010 05:24:39 pm Michael Dillon wrote:
For comparison look at the z-80 CPU which powered the early desktop
computers. When the IBM PC came out, people thought that the Intel
8086
would make the Z-80 obsolete. But it didn't. The Z-80 just
disappeared
into all sorts of electronic
devices where it serves as a controller for some function, perhaps
the
video display or the disk drive servos. And you can still buy them.
Lots of DVD drives use embedded Z80's as controllers, including the
dual-layer
drive in my laptop. Never thought that my teenage years spent
hacking Z80
machine code on a TRS-80 could produce a currently marketable
skill....
Quick, Z80 joke coming.... Addr: 0000:21 00 00 01 FF FF 11 01 00 ED
B0.......Will it finish?
Same is true of MIPS and PowerPC, though. There are far more MIPS
chips in
routers than ever saw desktop use in SGI workstations; and while it
might take
a little while for Cisco's PowerPC driven routers' CPU's to
outnumber all the
PowerMacs our there, one day it will happen.
And then all those PowerMac assembly language gurus might prove
useful in the
router side of the house.....
The Juniper SRX-100 appears to have a MIPS or MIPS-like chip in it
called
an Octeon.
Owen
