[124208] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: [OT] Old kit (was:Re: IP4 Space)
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Owen DeLong)
Fri Mar 26 13:19:45 2010
From: Owen DeLong <owen@delong.com>
To: Lamar Owen <lowen@pari.edu>
In-Reply-To: <201003261145.18794.lowen@pari.edu>
Date: Fri, 26 Mar 2010 10:16:44 -0700
Cc: nanog@nanog.org
Errors-To: nanog-bounces+nanog.discuss=bloom-picayune.mit.edu@nanog.org
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
