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NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 12 Feb 2025 21:24:37 +0000
Subject: Re: GIMP 3.0.0-RC1
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From: "WokieSux282@ud0s4.net" <WokieSux283@ud0s4.net>
Organization: WokieSux
Date: Wed, 12 Feb 2025 16:24:40 -0500
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On 2/12/25 1:50 PM, rbowman wrote:
> On Wed, 12 Feb 2025 12:25:17 -0500, WokieSux282@ud0s4.net wrote:
> 
>>     I think the 86 series had 'more future possibilities'
>>     than the 8085. There were too many 8-bit systems out there already,
>>     so bumping up to 16 bit was smart for sales. Why make/compete-with
>>     "just another TRS-80" ?
> 
> 16/32 bit processors were in the air so it would make no sense to stay
> with 8 bits.
> 
> https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-inside-story-of-texas-instruments-biggest-
> blunder-the-tms9900-microprocessor
> 
> That covers the ground from a slightly different perspective, a TI
> engineer. It's interesting to speculate on IBM's view of future
> possibilities. A large part of the company didn't think there was a
> future. Intel thought the 432 was the future but that fell on its face.
> Using the 8088 solved the peripherals problem but it also meant the
> performance wasn't better than a Z80. Z80 designs were already doing bank
> switching. The 8088 just had the additional registers to implement it.
> 
> The TMS9900 wasn't a bad chip, if a little odd if you came from the Intel/
> Zilog world. I worked with it on one project. Because of TI's roots they
> had a rad hard version
> 
> https://retrocomputingforum.com/t/the-texas-instruments-tms-9900-
> microprocessor/1370
> 
> That's a good description of the oddities.

   I did a little ASM for the 9900. It *was* a bit 'odd'
   however. Register-sets-in-RAM was unique, but it
   facilitated multi-user. Everybody remembers the PC,
   but the real intended use of the chip was in the 990
   mini-computer, where multi-user/tasking was a must.
   Actual hardware support for that, weird.

   Branch and Load Workspace Pointer .......

   Anyway, TI flubbed it and another early 16-bitter
   went down the toilet.

   There were a LOT of 'concept chips' back around the
   same time when 16+ bits was becoming real. Everyone
   was sure they had the Better Idea. Now, you might
   maybe find one in a surplus parts bin. (had a dream
   once about finding a TMS9900 - white with gold pins -
   in a surplus bin)

> The first article points out the IBM was big-endian and suddenly thy were
> transported into the little-endian world. Our legacy software uses ONC-RPC
> which handle the byte order. Originally the system ran on RS6000 machines
> where the reshuffling was a NOOP. As we started using Linux in house for
> development, the x86 machines had to reverse the canonical big-endian
> data. No problem. Then our clients moved to Windows while we still used
> Linux leading to the absurdity of dual processing to move little-endian to
> big-endian and back to little-endian.
> 
> All that is hidden in the RPC code but it becomes explicit when you find
> yourself using htonl, ntohl, and friends when building a socket
> connection.

   There were some dual-chip jobbbies, bet-hedging.
   One TRS-80 could be had with a 68k board that
   ran CP/M-68k and as I recall the C128 had both
   a 65xx upgrade plus a Z80 that'd run CP/M.

   Dealing with big/small-endian ... that could get
   a bit confusing jumping back and forth between
   platforms. Made some boards with both a Rabbit
   and PIC on them and would find myself typing PIC
   instructions into the bunny and vice-versa sometimes :-)