Re: [OT] Old kit (was:Re: IP4 Space)

[Owen DeLong <owen () delong com>]

On Mar 26, 2010, at 8:45 AM, Lamar Owen wrote:

> On Wednesday 24 March 2010 05:24:39 pm Michael Dillon wrote:
> > For comparison look at the z-80 CPU which powered the early desktop
> > computers. When the IBM PC came out, people thought that the Intel  
> > 8086
> > would make the Z-80 obsolete. But it didn't. The Z-80 just  
> > disappeared
> > into all sorts of electronic
> > devices where it serves as a controller for some function, perhaps  
> > the
> > video display or the disk drive servos. And you can still buy them.
>
> Lots of DVD drives use embedded Z80's as controllers, including the  
> dual-layer
> drive in my laptop.  Never thought that my teenage years spent  
> hacking Z80
> machine code on a TRS-80 could produce a currently marketable  
> skill....
>
> Quick, Z80 joke coming.... Addr: 0000:21 00 00 01 FF FF 11 01 00 ED
> B0.......Will it finish?
>
> Same is true of MIPS and PowerPC, though.  There are far more MIPS  
> chips in
> routers than ever saw desktop use in SGI workstations; and while it  
> might take
> a little while for Cisco's PowerPC driven routers' CPU's to  
> outnumber all the
> PowerMacs our there, one day it will happen.
>
> And then all those PowerMac assembly language gurus might prove  
> useful in the
> router side of the house.....

The Juniper SRX-100 appears to have a MIPS or MIPS-like chip in it  
called
an Octeon.

Owen