486 processor what does that mean in relation to other processors?

Question

Just thinking about my very first PC it was a 486 with 8mb of ram, i think and a 500mb hard drive. Just trying to compare this to todays computers. how would be the best way to describe this? i mean in numbers not words lol. just pictured everyone saying rubbish, slow etc
cheers

Answer 1

compare a ford fiesta and a ferrari f40 !

Answer 2

10-15 year old 4th generation computer as compared to what are about 7th generation today. In many ways the older computers were better because it made programmers more efficient. Also a survey done around that time showed that people using text based computers were more productive than those who used computers with GUIs. I could get all nostalgic but what I will say is there were a lot of lessons learnt then about user interfaces and programming that have been long forgotten. Hence some of the less than classy offerings out there at the moment, operating systems included. I wonder if anybody remembers the old software development T-shirt that is said to have originated from Apple, one line of which said something along the lines of "ship software for de-bugging, customers are good at this".

Answer 3

My first machine was an 8086 (your 486 was actually an 80486), I have worked on 80286 and 80386 machines. Basically my original would make yours look like a rocket against a bicycle. It also did not have any hard drive, just 2 floppy discs. Everyone was excited at the thought of 2. I then managed to get a 20 MB hard drive for it. Everyone had seizures.

Answer 4

i think the 486 topped out at around 33-40mhz right? I had an IBM 486 that was 33mhz and it was quick in its day. I think the 486 also had an integrated math processor which made it more efficient than the 386 which came in 2 models sx and dx i think. My 386sx came without a math co-processor and i overclocked it up to 21mhz....that was screaming for it!

Answer 5

They were the days i had a 386 16mb ram and a wopping 10mb harddrive. yea ok they were slow but not at the time. They are only slow now because of the power pc's have today a 486 proccessor ran at 120mhz on some systems but sureley you know the difference between yesteryears proccessors to todays one's if you know about computers that is .

Answer 6

Although this is a very broad question, I usually tell people that processors are like car engines. 486's were like 4 cylinder engines, Pentiums were like 6 cylinder engines, etc... Furthermore, dual core or quad core processors are like having 2 engines in your car :)

My first computer was a Gateway 2000 486 DX/2 66, and my friends gasped when they saw it! It was the bomb! In comparison, the computer I am on now, the one I built, is a AMD dual core 4400, 2GB RAM, (2) Raptors, SB X-FI, 7800 GTX, DVD Burner... lol Too bad I didnt run 3DMark on it :)

Answer 7

Takes me back to 1990 and my first IT lesson at collage As a mature ( that means old) student, i used a computer ( Vic) with a 40 Mega bite hard drive and the Internet was not in general use, 17 years later just look at what has come, the chips evolved quickly from the old 286 to the Pentiums, but that seems to have slowed, we are ready for a change in detraction, bur where will it take us, I look forward to it's challenges. ( old at 50 no!)

Answer 8

the 486 was the first mainstream procesor used in p.c,s
the original processor ran at a speed of 16mhz,and various models were released.......
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Intel 80486 — The original chip (without any clock doubling).
Intel 80486SX — an i486DX with the FPU part disabled or missing. Early variants were parts with disabled (defective) FPUs, later versions has the FPU removed from the die to reduce area and hence cost.
Intel 80486DX — newer versions of the original 80486.
Intel 80486DX2 — the internal processor clock runs at twice the clock rate of the external bus clock.
Intel 80486SX2 — i486DX2 with the FPU disabled.
Intel 80486SL — i486DX with power conservation circuitry. Mainly for use in portable computers.
Intel 80486SL-NM — i486DX with power conservation circuitry; SL enhanced suffix, denotes a i486 with special power conservation circuitry similar to that in the i486SL processors.
Intel 80487 — i486DX with a slightly different pinout for use in i486SX systems as a FPU.
Intel 80486 OverDrive — i486SX, i486SX2, i486DX2 or i486DX4. Marked as upgrade processors, some models had different pinouts or voltage handling abilities from 'standard' chips of the same speed stepping.
Intel 80486DX4 — designed to run at triple clock rate (not quadruple as often believed; the DX3, which was meant to run at 2.5x the clock speed, was never released).
in comparison to todays computers the 486 click speeds were laughable,but in their day you would be up to date with a 66mhz c.p.u and 4mb ram,and a hard drive of 500mb similar to yours was massive,however remember the average file was around 1 to 2mb so 500mb was massive
i know a mate who overclocked a 486 cpu from around 100mhz to 900mhz,he used some water cooling to acheive this,however it crashed after around 5 minutes but it just showed how high these processors could reach
in twenty years time we shall be laughing at dual core chips like the intel core 2 duo,the chips then will either run at speeds like 20ghz or will be no longer silicon based and are more likely to be d.n.a or something similar
good luck mate!

Answer 9

It probably loaded Windows faster than todays processors.

Windows has become so over-the-top that seems to get slower rather than faster. Then there is all anti-virus packages that have to be run just to protect the computer.

Things seem to be getting slower all round. So much for Microsoft's claim that you can be more productive with Windows Vista. What they should say is switch on the power and wait at least 10 minutes before you can do anything.

Answer 10

specific as long as you have a community connection this must be speedy adequate to visit cyberspace... Bu i could reccomment upgrading the memory to a minimum of 64mb if available... these days you will possibly no longer actually be able to run the relationship utility thats being surpassed out via those ISPs.

Answer 11

It was a good processor in its time that got the work done efficiently when "bloatware" was not yet the trend.