Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!purdue!ames!ncar!ico!vail!rcd
From: rcd@ico.isc.com (Dick Dunn)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: IBM Workstations (really, IBM Marketing)
Summary: but the details *are* missing
Message-ID: <1989Oct19.023316.7433@ico.isc.com>
Date: 19 Oct 89 02:33:16 GMT
References: <16190@vail.ICO.ISC.COM> <4424@bd.sei.cmu.edu> <1227@crdos1.crd.ge.COM>
Distribution: usa
Organization: Interactive Systems Corporation
Lines: 25

davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.COM (Wm E Davidsen Jr) writes:
| ...pasek@ncrcce.StPaul.NCR.COM (Michael A. Pasek) writes:
| |  ...You don't have to come up with anything new or
| |  innovative, just take somebody else's sweat and make everyone THINK
| |  that yours will be NEW AND IMPROVED.  
| 
|   I don't think the quote of firm (a) price, (b) performance (if I get
| to measure it) and (c) delivery date is a problem. What used to happen
| is that IBM and others would say "we have a great new system coming out
| in January which will really beat what's on the market." With not
| details there was a lot of wait and see.

Bill, your points are good...but note that the article which started this
off (in _EE_Times_) contained only a vague speculation about price, no real
performance information (no clock or cycle times, no benchmarks), and a
delivery date given only as "early 1990".

I'm more critical of _EE_Times_ than IBM; it's _EE_Times_ that's conclu-
ding, on the basis of a few tiny shreds of information, that this putative
new machine "propels IBM to the head of the pack in computer architectures."
But it does seem that what little IBM has said sounds a lot like Bill's
definition for "wait and see."
-- 
Dick Dunn     rcd@ico.isc.com    uucp: {ncar,nbires}!ico!rcd     (303)449-2870
   ...No DOS.  UNIX.