OT: RE: Apple Goes Intel...

[Jim Leonard]

John Allain wrote:
> #2 Are there No books on the bugginess of the PC architecture?

I don't subscribe to that opinion.  I think that you could make a strong case 
that the design left a lot to be desired (16-bit 8088 segmented memory 
organization being the worst offender; lack of registers being the second) but 
I don't think it was "buggy".  "Buggy" suggests that doing the same operation 
twice would not consistently return the same result, and on solidly-built IBM 
PCs and *solid* clones (like compaq, AT&T/Olivetti), in my experience, that has 
never been the case.  I have seen cheap third-world clones that DID do this, 
but it was because they were poorly implemented (bad memory, incomplete BIOS 
implementation), not because the core design itself was bad.
-- 
Jim Leonard (trixter at oldskool.org)                    http://www.oldskool.org/
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