Date   : Mon, 06 Mar 2006 18:40:08 -0000
From   : "David Hunt" <dm.hunt@...>
Subject: Re: Warning: Sad case on list!

> > BTW I know a chap, another FidoNutter way back when, who claims to have
> > an *386* internal co-pro in his attic. He promised it to me years ago,
> > but I don't like to nag.
> 
> Wow. Would love some details on that - wonder where it fitted into things
> date-wise? Curious as to what Acorn's justification was too. ARM CPU work
> must
> have been in full swing by then, so I wonder what the justification was?
> Deffo
> a 386 copro for an 8 bitter rather than some sort of PC copro for an ARM
> machine?

IIRC didn't Acorn think about using the 80386 but Intel wouldn't let them
have a sample or something so they made their own. I remember seeing an
80386 in an Intel motherboard at some tech. fair in 1985. I don't think it
came mainstream until mid 1986. I remember it well because the motherboard
was enormous and had a prototype 82385 surrounded by lots of memory ICs with
big heatsinks on them - a 32K level 2 cache. I also recall some guy saying
that the 386 wouldn't sell and the 286 was a much better processor... yeah
right...

I'd love to see some pictures/benchmarks of a 386 2nd processor, my old 386
is running my firewall.

Dave ;)