POV-Ray : Newsgroups : povray.binaries.images : Post your first image! : Re: Post your first image! Server Time
30 Jul 2024 20:17:47 EDT (-0400)
  Re: Post your first image!  
From: Alain
Date: 10 Aug 2011 19:55:17
Message: <4e431a65$1@news.povray.org>

> Am 03.08.2011 19:40, schrieb s.day:
>> clipka<ano### [at] anonymousorg> wrote:
>>>
>>> The image was most likely rendered on a 386 DX-40 machine (without
>>> mathematical co-processor), using /some/ DOS version of POV-Ray
>>> (presumably 2.0). As for the rendering time, I just recall it to have
>>> been /awfully/ long.
>>
>> I thought the DX machines were the ones with the co-processor, my
>> first PC was a
>> 386 SX-33 and I remember complaining to the person who built it as I
>> had asked
>> for a DX with a co-processor and 4MB of memory. I remember him saying
>> nothing
>> has been written to use the co-processors so he did not think there
>> was any
>> point in adding one. Also asking me why I needed 4MB of memory, he
>> obviously was
>> not aware of POV-Ray.
>
> The 386 processors did not feature an on-die coprocessor yet; AFAIR, the
> SX/DX designation specified the size of the data bus (full 32 bit in the
> DX, multiplexed 2x16 bit in the SX) for this CPU generation.
>
> The first x86 CPU with on-die coprocessor was the 486, with the SX/DX
> designation indeed specifying whether the integrated coprocessor was
> enabled (DX) or disabled (SX, possibly dies with a defective coprocessor
> unit).
>
> (Fun fact: The corresponding chip to upgrade a 486-SX system - the 80487
> - was *not* a coprocessor after all, but essentially a full-fledged
> 486-DX CPU instead, which would take over full control of the system,
> disabling the system's mounted 486-SX.)

The 486 SX also had half sized data bus, thus ths SX designation. 
Essentialy, they made it so that it could be mounted on older, and much 
cheaper, motherboards made for the 386SX.


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