John VanSickle <evi### [at] hotmailcom> wrote:
> Warp wrote:

> > - Intel ceased the production of the 80386 processor on September 2007.

> The primary reason that old processors stay in production, even the (by 
> today's standards) ancient 386, is probably because of institutions that 
> buy proprietary-design items for their use and keep them in service for 
> many years.  The US military has a lot of old technology in its 
> equipment; electronic equipment designed in the 50's often lasted well 
> into the 80's.

  Once I was thinking: Given that the 386 was so popular well into the
2000's, couldn't they just design a *new* 386 using modern technology
and start selling that? In other words, a processor which is otherwise
completely identical to the old 386, except that it consumes one tenth
of the watts and emits one tenth of the heat, and thus is much cheaper
and can be used in a wider range of applications.

  I believe that the answer is: Intel *already* has the pipelines to
produce 386 processors, from the 80's. Basically they don't have to
do anything but (simplifying a bit) put the raw material in from one
end, and 386 processors pop out on the other end. The only costs are
the raw materials and the maintenance of the pipeline hardware. In
other words, it's very cheap for them to do this.
  Designing a completely *new* 387 using modern technologies would cost
them a whole lot of money. Countless man hours would be spent into the
design, and a completely new pipeline would need to be constructed.
Why spend all that money and go through all that trouble when the existing
hardware is doing just fine, and selling well?

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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