[Info-vax] BASIC compiler in the hobbyist distribution

[Phillip Helbig undress to reply]

In article <ivbg3c-tkr.ln1 at news.chingola.ch>, Paul Sture
<nospam at sture.ch> writes: 

> One famous case is of course Porsche, who persevered with an inherently
> unstable design (rear mounted engine) and made it work.

It is not inherently unstable, otherwise they couldn't have made it
work.  Yes, if one puts the engine in the rear and doesn't change
anything else, the car will oversteer, but this has been long since
corrected.  However, this is actually the best design.  First, you want
the engine on top of the powered wheels, so (ignoring 4WD), that means
in the front for front-wheel drive and in the back for rear-wheel drive.
However, for front-wheel drive, this means that you have to steer the
powered wheels, which is not optimal.  So, the Porsche (or Beetle, for 
that matter) has the engine on top of the powered wheels, which gives 
better traction because of the weight and has a much shorter drive 
train.  The unpowered wheels are steered.