Anonymous Coward wrote on 2020-05-15, 12:45:
I could be mistaken, but I thought that the Mach 10 used an 80186 rather than an 8086.
*edit* My mistake. I was thinking of the Orchid card. It seems weird to use what's basically an SBC to upgrade an 8088 to an 8086.
Indeed. There is an interesting note about its features:
Microsoft Card Aids Windows On 8088 PCs
Microsoft Corp. last week introduced an add-on card the company said will speed up the currently s luggish perfonnance of Microsoft’s Windows on some 8088-based machines.
The $549 Mach 10 card, which will work with the IBM PC and some compatibles, uses an Intel 8086 microprocessor operating at a clock rate of 9.54 MHz, double the usual 4.77-MHz rate of PCs with 8088 processors. The board, which includes a copy of Windows, has 8K of fast cache RAM (random-access memory), Microsofts new Inport graphics input chip and port, and an Inport Mouse. The cache memory provides the 8086 processor with fast access to frequently accessed information, the company said.
The Mach 10 requires a lull-size expansion slot and has a connector cable that plugs into the empty motherboard socket of the 8088 processor it replaces. To get around problems that the faster chip would otherwise create when used with some time-loop-dependent Basic programs and certain copy protection schemes, users can switch between the normal clock speed and the faster rate.
Microsoft, which faces competition from makers of PC speed-up cards using the more advanced Intel 80286 microproces sor. said it doesn’t think such cards offer much of an advantage over the Mach 10. The firm claims the Mach 10 will speed typical throughput by a factor of two to 2.5.
“If you rate a PC at 1, the Mach 10 is about 2, and an 80286 board we tested is about a 2.1.” said Michael Cooper, general manager of Microsoft’s hardware division. Microsoft will try to compete with 80286-based boards on the basis of price, he said.
Microsoft chairman Bill Gates emphasized that the 8-bit bus of 8088-based machines limits the cost-effectiveness of 80286-based boards because some of that chip’s performance is based on a 16-bit bus. “People shouldn’t be fooled into thinking that a 80286-based expansion card will provide access to future operating systems from Microsoft,” he said, adding that future operating systems can’t possibly expand the data bus of existing PCs.
