[Openurmind]

And bus speed. Bus was the biggest bottleneck in older computers.

[Dr. Sivana]

And bus speed. Bus was the biggest bottleneck in older computers.

Yup, IBM came out with the painful MCA (Micro Channel Architecture) which was 32 bit, but licensing fees were so high that no one came out with cards. Also, DOS was 16 bit at most, so that 32 bit capability wasn't really used. So IBM themselves had to keep selling ISA PCs after they swore them off for business (PS/2 Model 55).

Macintosh did better with Nubus, but even a $9,000 Mac IIx with a Motorola 68030 and PMMU couldn't get better than 10 Mhz through that Nubus, which lasted into the PowerPC generation.

[Justa]

“Bus was the biggest bottleneck in older computers.”

That’s what Michael Dell figured out early on. While Packard Bell and Compaq were throwing cheap junk together with fast CPUs Dell lined-up component bus speeds to closest match to the CPU. A more efficient design. Result: Cheap not-so-junk. That’s one reason why Dell’s early systems were so good. No design bottlenecks. Intel did the same later on putting the Celeron sticker to it.