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>> Back when PCs weren't very good and you had to make real choices about what processor, hard drive and so on to get, DELLs customization and modularity busine
by hershel 13y ago
>> Back when PCs weren't very good and you had to make real choices about what processor, hard drive and so on to get, DELLs customization and modularity business flourished.
The cpu/memory/chipset remained integrated , due to performance reasons. But external bus performance was good enough to separate some functionality into external cards.
- revelation 13y agoCPU, memory and chipset have always been very much modular parts. Chipset is determined by which motherboard you buy, memory comes as sticks you put into the motherboard, and even the CPU sockets in to keep it modular. I mean just imagine the trouble to keep the CPU seperate from the motherboard, as is still done today! It is very very difficult to build a socket (and matching CPU) for the 1000+ pins of a modern CPU where each pin can possibly carry signals at multiple GHz frequencies.
- hershel 13y agoYes you're right ,they are modular. The change christensen refers to is the shift from companies that built whole computers, like IBM - to the IBM pc , which was an assembly of parts from different companies. My guess is that at that time , the pc-XT came with memory chips that weren't soldered , but in sockets. At that context that didn't mean much loss of performance. That habit of pluggable memory stuck. I'm not sure you lose much performance due to it. And if we're talking about integrated memory - intel does have caches. Probably those are the best ways to deeply integrate memory. And regarding CPU and board: it would be quite hard to integrate chips and board. There's was one attempt i know but it failed as far as i know. It's complex and not economical, but it does offer great performance.