I've got two museum pieces sitting on my desk right now: A Mac 512K (toaster-style), and an IBM PC-AT clone.
The Mac uses a Motorolla 68000 processor, and the AT uses an i80286. Both are 16-bit processors, and both run at 8 mhz.

Out of sheer curiosity, which CPU is faster? I made a few simple drawings on MacPaint and Windows 3.0 Paintbrush. The Mac seemed to have faster refresh rates, but that could've been because it only had to draw in black and white, while the 286 had to do 256(?) colors. Unfortunately, Tom's Hardware doesn't include these two CPUs on their interactive charts. :)

I think you have answered your own question.

I don't think I answered my own question. I mentioned screen redraw rates, that's about it...

I believe it depends on what you are doing as the speeds are equivalent, as you already stated. Are you talking numerical calculations, graphics programs, or what? It really is a toss up. Why so inquisitive about this?

Just wondering, that's all.
As for the clock speed being equivalent, well couldn't one chip be more efficient per clock cycle than the other one?

Because both of these don't even have onboard FPUs, the only thing they'll be doing is "general" type stuff. Putzing around the OS, running old games, and stuff like that.

X86 chips are CISC

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complex_instruction_set_computer

Motorolo 68000 are RISC

http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/R/RISC.html

This thread for the most part is a waste of forum space since it has no tangible iota of computing benefit to anyone that stumbles on it now nor in the future.

For starters, both processors were designed to run at the same speed (not like Intel vs AMD PR rating), so arguably one shouldn't be faster than the other. Also the i80286 was marketed as a newer & more refined alternative to the 68000, thus making it a better and smarter option.

Summarily, with no speed disparity between the two, any overwhelming performance difference, if at all, can only be attributed to some external variables no one here can accurately visualize or predict.

If a ton of feathers weighs as much as a ton of scrap metal, which one is easier to transport?

We're (almost) into apples vs oranges territory

Screen refresh would be highly dependent on the graphics adapter, and its settings

As Mr james alludes to, the processor architectures are quite different - factor that into the multitude of differences due to board design, memory, etc etc etc

I will say this - after more than a decade of collecting scrapped machines, I've only ever encountered a mere handful of (very, very old) Macintosh/Apple units, as opposed to hundreds of PCs, from XT's to modern AMD's

We've heard that a million monkeys at a million keyboards could produce the complete works of Shakespeare; now, thanks to the Internet, we know that is not true

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Thankya. Thankya very much :P

I appreciate the replies and links.

Amazing how far we've gone with computer hardware, isn't it? From 9 inch b&w screens to 21 inch widescreen LCDs?

From 320x240 in 16 colors to 1920x1200 in 16 million colors?

In 1995, we needed top-notch processors just to play mp3-compressed audio; and even then, it took up 75% of the CPU. Now we can play mp3s with such little cpu utilization that it doesn't even register in the task manager.

I'll shut up now.

"Now we can play mp3s with such little cpu utilization that it doesn't even register in the task manager"

With 3+ Gig. processors and 512 RAM the average on a new system. Yes, that is amazing. It would have been hard with a 8Mhz. and 1 meg RAM.

I remember it being hard on a Pentium 133.
The Win 95 start menu slowly built up block by block whenever Winamp was running.

3500 bucks for a basic 286 then and well less than 500 bucks now for a complete sempron or celeron system now...

Skip

Actually the only way to test which is faster is to use 'Machine Code' and will await the results of your programming endevours jackbomb.

At the end of the day in I/O the 68000 series will be faster..............but would like it confirmrd, thankyou.