Re: Linux on a PC Transporter?

[et472@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Michael Black)]

Exegete (millers@noneofyourbusiness.com) writes:
> Gene Linkoski wrote:
>> The V30 is like an 80186 from the documentation I have.
> 
> Well, as the 186 is an enhanced version of the 8086 (mostly, as I 
> understand it, it incorporated circuits that required additional chips 
> with the 8086) the point of my post is the same: the V30 is an enhanced 
> version of the 8086. The V20 is an enhanced version of the 8088. For the 
> user, the main enhancement was a reduction in cycles for a number of 
> operations.
> 
> Roy
> 
I once posted something similar to the Tandy newsgroup and got some flack.
For someone who is interested in hardware, the key point to me about
the 80186 was that it was more like a microcontroller, including onboard
circuitry (like DMA and timers but I can't remember exactly what) that
would otherwise need to be added externally.  It would have been great
for embedded systems, but when put into "IBM compatibles" there were
problems because the hardware landed at different addresses from where
they were supposed to be in "IBM compatibles".  Hence such computers,
like one of the Tandy's, couldn't be compatible on a hardware level.

But, and I'd never paid attention, there was an extended instruction
set in the 80186, making it more like the 80286 on  a software level.
I never checked what, so I don't know if it was all the 80286
instructions, or a partial set.

And according to the flack I got, one or more of the NEC CPU's
was 80186-like in the software department.  And hence 80286-like.

I don't have an 80186 datashett handy to check this, but enough
people believe in it to make me suspect there is truth to it.

   Michael