[KLUG Members] Re: Cyrix -- WAS: Dual proc Mobos

[Bryan J. Smith]

On Sat, 2002-05-25 at 15:20, Bryan J. Smith wrote:
> They are owned by ViA and have released GTL+ (Socket-370) processors. 
> You haven't heard of them lately because they continue to live in
> Intel's shadow.
> Again, AMD finally "wised up" and got out from under it.

Cyrix is the "silent" x86 clone nobody talks about.  I distinctly
remember Cyrix's CEO saying something like "We'll let Intel and AMD duke
it out at the high end while we build a silent embedded marketshare"
shortly after the Athlon was announced.  This is _exactly_ what they
have done.

Cyrix really made their mark with their MediaGX product which was a
"system-on-a-chip" (SOC) product.  It contained the core, cache,
northbridge and southbridge all in one chip.  It was quite a concept
that used far less power than Intel/AMD solutions.

National Semi bought them out.  They then created a series of successors
to the MediaGX products, the latest being the Geode series, that power
everything from webpads to the X-box.
http://www.national.com/appinfo/solutions/0,2062,396,00.html

National and Intel ended up in a lawsuit over patent infringements. 
They eventually settled out of court with a patent cross-licensing
agreement.  As such, they are now allowed to make GTL+ Socket-370
processors.

ViA then purchased Cyrix from National, although National holds a
license to continue producing SOC Geodes.  ViA also purchased IDT who
make a very interested x86 clone in its Centaur WinChip series (long
story).  The result is the ViA C3 processor which is much better than
the Celeron in many cases.
http://www.via.com.tw/en/viac3/c3.jsp

People who just buy Intel by default are _way_ behind the times.

-- Bryan

-- 
The US government could be 100x more effective, and 1/100th the
Constitutional worry, if it dictated its policy to Microsoft as
THE MAJOR CUSTOMER it is, and not THE REGULATOR it fails to be.
---------------------------------------------------------------
Bryan J. Smith, SmithConcepts, Inc.   mailto:b.j.smith@ieee.org
Engineers and IT Professionals     http://www.SmithConcepts.com