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Nominal Semidestructor

   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 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.