Path: news.eternal-september.org!eternal-september.org!.POSTED!not-for-mail
From: David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: The integral type 'byte' (was Re: Suggested method for returning
 a string from a C program?)
Date: Fri, 28 Mar 2025 13:00:12 +0100
Organization: A noiseless patient Spider
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On 28/03/2025 11:22, Janis Papanagnou wrote:
> On 28.03.2025 10:13, David Brown wrote:
>> [...]
> 

>>> [ NS32032 ]
>>
>> Indeed.  After all, the 68k was one of the most successful ISAs ever,
>> and the x86 "won" for economic reasons, not technical reasons.  The
>> NS32000, on the other hand, is known only to a few nerds. [...]
> 
> Given that it did not "survive" in the first place I was astonished
> that when I spoke with IT professionals in the past it was mentioned
> as outstanding (compared to a lot of other alternatives these days).

The 68k was outstanding.  The NS32000 had a lot of similarities to the 
68k.  Therefore, compared to a lot of /other/ architectures around, it 
too was outstanding.  Compared to the 68k, however, it was nothing 
special - no doubt there were some pros and some cons.

> I was also astonished that bart had it in his short-list. So I'm not
> inclined to accept your words that it's "known only to a few nerds".
> (It's not necessarily the best technologies that "survive".) YMMV.
> 

Bart is a nerd of rare quality.  (I mean that in a good way.)  It does 
not surprise me that he is familiar with it.

Remember that while the NS32000 died away fairly quickly, when it was 
around it was a reasonably well-known alternative to the bigger names. 
Someone looking for a powerful cpu and not burdened by compatibility 
restraints, could just as well have picked it rather than a 68k device. 
At that time, no one knew it would die away from the scene.  So people 
involved in designing computer equipment at that time - such as Bart - 
would know of it and may well have used it.