Processors.
My, how far things have come. I remember my
first computer with its top of the range in PCU power - it was a 286 AT
running at a whopping (yeah right) 16 MHz. One of the better features of
that computer (appart from its impressive speed at the time) was that is
had a math-co-processor. I didn't know what that meant, of course, but
it did actually seem to make a difference between our computer and my friends'.
But my cutting edge technology was to be short
lived because soon the 386 came along, followed quickly by the 486. That's
when we upgraded our computer. We got a brand new 486 DX2-66. However,
the same weekend that we unwrapped it, the first Pentiums were advertised
in the paper and our brand new machine was out of date.
Of course, now things have progressed
even further. We now have access to processors churning out 333MHz. And
they're coming cheaper and cheaper. There is, of course, a challenger to
the supremacy of Intel as the major producer and seller of PC chips. Cyrix
are providing the 6x86 chips which are comparable to the Intel Pentium
II in most respects, although they run at a lower clock speed, (ie MHz)
they are supposed to provide the performance of the Pentium running at
a faster speed. I have heard lots of stories about these not performing
the way they were supposed to, though, so I'm inclined to go with the more
expensive but reliable Intel CPU's.
Go to the Intel
or Cyrix website.
