I lost my awe for Intel already back in the late 1980s. Back then, I was technical editor for 'CADalyst' magazine (the first magazine for AutoCAD users). CAD is memory-hungry, and I was reviewing a batch of memory expansion boards.
I was stunned to find that the expanded memory board Intel shipped me did not comply with the LIM EMS memory spec defined by Intel, Lotus, and Microsoft. (The spec provided a paged system of memory to break the then-current 640KB limit to memory.)
Around the same time, there was a big market for co-processor add-ons to run CAD software faster. Not because Intel CPUs didn't include the FPU circuitry, but because the 8087 and 287 math chips were poorly implemented. I can't recall the name of the chip maker, but their math chips ran something like 5x faster than Intel's.
Last year, my 18-year-old son decided to build his own computer. He researched CPUs, but found Intel's offerings so confusing, he ended up with an AMD.
I do have to give Intel credit. As a monopolist, they have managed their image in a way that Microsoft has failed, despite the current law suit from AMD.
Weitek math coprocessor. I needed one for the 386DX that I was running Versacad386 ver5.X on.
Posted by: Mark Rodriguez | Sep 12, 2005 at 10:39 AM