*updating* 8088's

[Eric J Korpela]

> Doubtless the 386SX board designs were low-budged also, which
> probably figured into things.  Some 286 vendors made a big thing of
> the fact that a 286 could execute 16-bit real mode code substantially
> faster than the 386SX.  For example:
>
> http://www.intersil.com/data/an/an121.pdf
>
> On the other hand, the 386SX could execute 32-bit code.  That is, if
> you had any to run in 1989.

You do need to consider that that "application note" was a marketing
tool and the subroutines they designed for the application note of
course will make heavy use of instructions that are faster on a 286
than on a 386SX.  On typical 16 bit code I didn't see a significant
difference on a cacheless 16MHz 286 and a cacheless 16MHz 386SX.  I
don't currently own a 386SX machine, so I can't give current
benchmarks.  ISTR that you could get a 386SX with an SRAM cache on the
motherboard.  I don't recall that on any 286 boards, but I'm sure
someone else will point one out...

Eric