Nominal Semidestructor

Soundalike slang for "National Semiconductor", found among

other places in the 4.3BSD 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 instructionset 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.

(1994-12-23)