A few more details of the unpublicised PowerPC 615, the version that has on-chip iAPX-86 emulation capabilities emerged at Comdex, where Phil Hester, now responsible for ensuring that IBM Corp’s disparate business units share as much common technology as possible, hinted that the 615 will become something of a universal emulator, able to translate Motorola Inc 68000 instructions into RISC instructions on the fly, as well as pulling that trick for iAPX-86 ones. Support for both of these architectures is absolutely critical, Infoworld quotes Hester as saying. Motorola officials refused to confirm or deny the existence of the 615 chip, but acknowledged that such a chip could be crucial to the PowerPC’s future, particularly if it runs Windows95 in native mode. But the chip design is dogged by the same absurd arguments that have caused IBM’s alliance with Apple Computer Inc and Motorola Inc taking three years to reach the point it should have arrived at on Day Two. The IBM Personal Computer Co would apparently like to see a PowerPC processor that is pin-compatible with the 80486 or Pentium but others reject the idea.
