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Nominal Semidestructor
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Nominal Semidestructor /n./ Soundalike slang for `National
Semiconductor', found among other places in the Networking/2
networking sources. During the late 1970s to mid-1980s this
company marketed a series of microprocessors including the NS16000
and NS32000 and several variants. At one point early in the great
microprocessor race, the specs on these chips made them look like
serious competition for the rising Intel 80x86 and Motorola 680x0
series. Unfortunately, the actual parts were notoriously flaky and
never implemented the full instruction set promised in their
literature, apparently because the company couldn't get any of the
mask steppings to work as designed. They eventually sank without
trace, joining the Zilog Z8000 and a few even more obscure
also-rans in the graveyard of forgotten microprocessors. Compare
HP-SUX, AIDX, buglix, Macintrash, Telerat,
Open DeathTrap, ScumOS, sun-stools.
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