The Cyrix 6x86 is a line of sixth-generation, 32-bit x86 microprocessors designed and released by Cyrix in 1995. Cyrix, being a fabless company, had the chips manufactured by IBM and SGS-Thomson. The 6x86 was made as a direct competitor to Intel's Pentium microprocessor line, and was pin compatible. During the 6x86's development, the majority of applications performed almost entirely integer operations. The designers foresaw that future applications would most likely maintain this instruction focus. So, to optimize the chip's performance for what they believed to be the most likely application of the CPU, the integer execution resources received most of the transistor budget. This would later prove to be a strategic mistake, as the popularity of the P5 Pentium caused many software developers to hand-optimize code in assembly language, to take advantage of the P5 Pentium's tightly pipelined and lower latency FPU. For example, the highly anticipated first-person shooter Quake used highly optimized assembly code designed almost entirely around the P5 Pentium's FPU. As a result, the P5 Pentium significantly outperformed other CPUs in the game.
The 8086 is a 16-bit microprocessor chip designed by Intel between early 1976 and June 8, 1978, when it was released. The Intel 8088, released July 1, 1979, is a slightly modified chip with an external 8-bit data bus, and is notable as the processor used in the original IBM PC design.
The Intel 386, originally released as 80386 and later renamed i386, is a 32-bit microprocessor designed by Intel. The first pre-production samples of the 386 were released to select developers in 1985, while mass production commenced in 1986. The processor was a significant evolution in the x86 architecture, extending a long line of processors that stretched back to the Intel 8008. The 386 was the central processing unit (CPU) of many workstations and high-end personal computers of the time. The 386 began to fall out of public use starting with the release of the i486 processor in 1989, while in embedded systems the 386 remained in widespread use until Intel finally discontinued it in 2007.
The Intel 486, officially named i486 and also known as 80486, is a microprocessor. It is a higher-performance follow-up to the Intel 386. The i486 was introduced in 1989. It represents the fourth generation of binary compatible CPUs following the 8086 of 1978, the Intel 80286 of 1982, and 1985's i386.
The Pentium is a x86 microprocessor introduced by Intel on March 22, 1993. It is the first CPU using the Pentium brand. Considered the fifth generation in the 8086 compatible line of processors, its implementation and microarchitecture was internally called P5.
The StrongARM is a family of computer microprocessors developed by Digital Equipment Corporation and manufactured in the late 1990s which implemented the ARM v4 instruction set architecture. It was later acquired by Intel in 1997 from DEC's own Digital Semiconductor division as part of a settlement of a lawsuit between the two companies over patent infringement. Intel then continued to manufacture it before replacing it with the StrongARM-derived ARM-based follow-up architecture called XScale in the early 2000s.
Cyrix Corporation was a microprocessor developer that was founded in 1988 in Richardson, Texas, as a specialist supplier of floating point units for 286 and 386 microprocessors. The company was founded by Tom Brightman and Jerry Rogers.
The Pentium Pro is a sixth-generation x86 microprocessor developed and manufactured by Intel and introduced on November 1, 1995. It introduced the P6 microarchitecture and was originally intended to replace the original Pentium in a full range of applications. Later, it was reduced to a more narrow role as a server and high-end desktop processor. The Pentium Pro was also used in supercomputers, most notably ASCI Red, which used two Pentium Pro CPUs on each computing nodes and was the first computer to reach over one teraFLOPS in 1996, holding the number one spot in the TOP500 list from 1997 to 2000.
The Cyrix 5x86 is a line of x86 microprocessors designed by Cyrix and released on June 5 of 1995. Cyrix, being a fabless company, had the chips manufactured by IBM. The line came out about 5 months before the more famous Cyrix 6x86. The Cyrix 5x86 was one of the fastest CPUs ever produced for Socket 3 computer systems. With better performance in most applications than an Intel Pentium processor at 75 MHz, the Cyrix Cx5x86 filled a gap by providing a medium-performance processor option for 486 Socket 3 motherboards.
The PowerPC 7xx is a family of third generation 32-bit PowerPC microprocessors designed and manufactured by IBM and Motorola. This family is called the PowerPC G3 by Apple Computer, which introduced it on November 10, 1997. A number of microprocessors from different vendors have been used under the "PowerPC G3" name. Such designations were applied to Mac computers such as the PowerBook G3, the multicolored iMacs, iBooks and several desktops, including both the Beige and Blue and White Power Macintosh G3s. The low power requirements and small size made the processors ideal for laptops and the name lived out its last days at Apple in the iBook.
The Cyrix Cx486SLC is a x86 microprocessor that was developed by Cyrix. It was one of Cyrix's first CPU offerings, released after years of selling math coprocessors that competed with Intel's units and offered better performance at a comparable or lower price. It was announced in March of 1992, and released 2 months later in May, with a price of $119. It was priced competitively against the Intel 486SX, causing Intel to lower the price of their chip from $286 to $119 in just days.
The Cyrix Cx486DLC is an x86 desktop microprocessor developed by Cyrix. It was Cyrix's second CPU offering, released years after selling math coprocessors that competed with Intel's units and offered better performance at a comparable or lower price. It was released in June of 1992, with a price of $119 for computer manufacturers.
SPARC64 is a microprocessor developed by HAL Computer Systems and fabricated by Fujitsu. It implements the SPARC V9 instruction set architecture (ISA), the first microprocessor to do so. SPARC64 was HAL's first microprocessor and was the first in the SPARC64 brand. It operates at 101 and 118 MHz. The SPARC64 was used exclusively by Fujitsu in their systems; the first systems, the Fujitsu HALstation Model 330 and Model 350 workstations, were formally announced in September 1995 and were introduced in October 1995, two years late. It was succeeded by the SPARC64 II in 1996.
x87 is a floating-point-related subset of the x86 architecture instruction set. It originated as an extension of the 8086 instruction set in the form of optional floating-point coprocessors that work in tandem with corresponding x86 CPUs. These microchips have names ending in "87". This is also known as the NPX. Like other extensions to the basic instruction set, x87 instructions are not strictly needed to construct working programs, but provide hardware and microcode implementations of common numerical tasks, allowing these tasks to be performed much faster than corresponding machine code routines can. The x87 instruction set includes instructions for basic floating-point operations such as addition, subtraction and comparison, but also for more complex numerical operations, such as the computation of the tangent function and its inverse, for example.
The MediaGX CPU is an x86-compatible processor that was designed by Cyrix and manufactured by National Semiconductor following the two companies' merger. It was introduced in 1997. The core is based on the integration of the Cyrix Cx5x86 CPU core with hardware to process video and audio output. Following the buyout of Cyrix by National Semiconductor and the sale of the Cyrix name and trademarks to VIA Technologies, the core was developed by National Semiconductor into the Geode line of processors, which was subsequently sold to Advanced Micro Devices.
The R5000 is a 64-bit, bi-endian, superscalar, in-order execution 2-issue design microprocessor that implements the MIPS IV instruction set architecture (ISA) developed by Quantum Effect Design (QED) in 1996. The project was funded by MIPS Technologies, Inc (MTI), also the licensor. MTI then licensed the design to Integrated Device Technology (IDT), NEC, NKK, and Toshiba. The R5000 succeeded the QED R4600 and R4700 as their flagship high-end embedded microprocessor. IDT marketed its version of the R5000 as the 79RV5000, NEC as VR5000, NKK as the NR5000, and Toshiba as the TX5000. The R5000 was sold to PMC-Sierra when the company acquired QED. Derivatives of the R5000 are still in production today for embedded systems.
The 1801 series CPUs were a family of 16-bit Soviet microprocessors based on the indigenous Elektronika NC microarchitecture cores, but binary compatible with DEC's PDP-11 machines. First released in 1980, various models and variants of the series were among the most popular Soviet microprocessors and dominated embedded systems and military applications of the 1980s. They were also used in widely different areas such as graphing calculators and industrial CNCs, but arguably their most well-known use was in several Soviet general-purpose mini- and microcomputer designs like the SM EVM, DVK, UKNC, and BK families. Due to being the CPU of the popular Elektronika BK home computer, used in its late years as a demo machine, as well as the DVK micros that often offered a first glimpse into the UNIX world, this processor achieved something of a cult status among Soviet and then Russian programmers, and to a lesser extent, international programmers.
The UMC Green CPU was an x86-compatible microprocessor produced by UMC, a Taiwanese semiconductor company, in the early- to mid-1990s. It was offered as an alternative to the Intel 80486 with which it was pin compatible, enabling it to be installed in most 80486 motherboards. All models had power management features intended to reduce electricity consumption.
The Cyrix Cx486 was an x86 microprocessor designed by Cyrix. It primarily competed with the Intel 486 with which it was software compatible, would operate in the same motherboards provided proper support by the BIOS was available and generally showed comparable performance. The chip also competed with parts from AMD and UMC.
