8-Bit Machines return???

[Tom O'Neill <tdon@delphi.com>]

Has anyone picked up a copy of PC Computing for April, 1996? Old nemisis
John Dvorak has an interesting article about 8-bit stuff:
 
Total Recall
 
"One of the least-covered news stories of 1995 was a curious code exchange
between
Microsoft and Novell.  This gave Microsoft the rights to, of all things,
CP/M, CP/M-86, and GEM (Digital Research's old GUI that was an early
competitor to Windows, and used in some form on 68000-based Atari machines."
 
...low-end machine Microsoft is developing in conjunction with IBM...
a cheap Web-oriented terminal."
 
...this Web machine will be based on a new line of high-speed Z-80s.  But it
needs an 8-bit operating system, and CP/M is it.  Apparently an 8-bit version of
GEM was developed...and that's what Gates & Co. wants for this computer.  Its
backup is the Amiga operating system...decision was made at the highest level,
meaning Gates."
 
...Apparently anyone talking to Bill these days gets an earful about the
advantages of 8-bit computing (small words, small code size, speed) when it
comes to the Internet."
 
How about an 8-bit PowerPC chip based on the 615....
 
...half-word computing...Netscape...half-word burst mode in v. 3.0
 
Credibility, Inc.  ... a 4-bit machine using quarter word abilities
 
Intel...redesign the original 4-bit microprocessor -- the 4004 -- with a
RISC architecture.
 
DEC...simulations on a 4-bit Alpha..."compare favorably" with the performance
of a 133 MHz Pentium
 
...halving the bit length will double performance to infinity minus 1....
 
He ends the article with the line:
 
And for those of you with a hexidecimal education, know this:
61 70 72 69 6C 20 66 6F 6C 73 20 64 61 79."
 
Amusing, no?