Xref: utzoo comp.arch:10347 comp.graphics:6237
Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!mcvax!ukc!warwick!arthur
From: arthur@warwick.UUCP (John Vaudin)
Newsgroups: comp.arch,comp.graphics
Subject: i82786 R.I.P. ?
Message-ID: <1987@ubu.warwick.UUCP>
Date: 22 Jun 89 16:43:05 GMT
Sender: news@warwick.UUCP
Reply-To: arthur@flame.warwick.ac.uk (John Vaudin)
Organization: Computer Science, University of Warwick, UK.
Lines: 31

I read some rumours in a UK magazine that Intel have stopped production
of their i82786 graphics co-processor. This seems odd to me as it is quite
a new design. For those not familiar with the device, it supports all
the usual scan generation and drawing lines etc, but more interestingly
it suports hardware overlapping windows and does raterops. According to
the article I read Intel were expecting the chip to form the heart of
the VGA standard, and when IBM rejected it Intel decided to cease
production. This has, according to the article, produced much ill
feeling amongst small manufacturers here in the UK.

Is the rumour true? If so doesn't this seem a rather less than ethical
thing for Intel to do? It was claimed that the small manufacturers in
question vowed never to use Intel parts again, some even said they would
never use US parts again ( seems a bit drastic to me). But it must be
very difficult for small companies if even the large silicon companies
can't be trusted to continue to supply current parts. I realise that
some parts must eventually die out, but as I have said this is a newish
design. 

If this rumour is true then I am interested what implications this has to the
current RISC market. If manufacturers are going to stop production of
chips because sales are not as high as hoped for then what
happens if the 29000/88000/i860/MIPS/SPARC/.... etc. doesn't sell, will
the manufacturers keep production going?? There are so many RISCs on the
market at present that they can't all be successful, so 
does this mean that unless you back the winning horse you might be left 
with no supply at all ????

John Vaudin       Computer Science, Warwick University, UK.

e-mail arthur@uk.ac.warwick.cs