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From: rbarris@ics.uci.edu (Robert Charles Barris)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac,comp.sys.mac.hardware
Subject: Apple out of 68030s?
Summary: 8-day supply, sez article
Message-ID: <26604D72.8001@paris.ics.uci.edu>
Date: 27 May 90 21:58:10 GMT
Reply-To: rbarris@ics.uci.edu (Robert Charles Barris)
Organization: UC Irvine Department of ICS
Lines: 49


  I read this on America Online the other day and was disturbed greatly.
Can anyone confirm or deny the information in this article? According to
the date, Apple would have run out of 030s by now.

---begin article
Subj:  Apple says only 8 days of 68030       90-05-18 20:33:27 EDT
From:  AFA Candy                             Msgs:  1 (90-05-18)

APPLE TELLS OF 8-DAY 68030 SUPPLY


CUPERTINO, CALIFORNIA, U.S.A., 1990 MAY 11 (NB) -- In an effort to halt a Texas
judge's impending ban on the sale of Motorola 68030 microprocessors in the US,
Apple Computer has filed a statement saying that it only has on hand an 8-day
supply of the chips, the brains of at least 50 percent of its product lines,
according to court documents obtained by Electronics News.

This contrasts with the public statement by Apple at the time of the judge's
decision to stay his order, March 30, that Apple had a full quarter's, or three
month supply, of the microprocessors on hand.

The weekly quotes William Lard, associate general counsel for Apple as saying
that delay in the chips will mean that Apple "will not be able to produce half
its products." The statement says that "Any prolonged delay in obtaining the
68030 microprocessors will have a substantial impact on the thousands of Apple
employees."

An Apple spokesman would not comment on the report, which was supposed to have
been in confidential, sealed documents submitted to the court.

On March 30, U.S. District Court Judge Lucius Bunton temporarily lifted a
court-ordered ban on sales of 68030 microprocessors until an appeal is heard in
a case between Motorola and Hitachi, which he had decided. He had forbidden
Motorola from selling its popular 68030 microprocessor in the U.S. until the
year 2004; Hitachi was ordered to stop marketing or selling the H8 chip which
it accused Motorola of copying, for the duration of certain Motorola patents,
and to pay the company $1.9 million in fines.

In making his decision, the judge came down hard on both companies' failure to
communicate over previous licensing agreements. Motorola sued first in 1988,
charging Hitachi with violating trade secrets in development of controllers.
Hitachi countersued, charging Motorola with patent infringement.

Most observers expect the two sides to come to a less severe agreement out of
court, and to submit it to the judge for his consideration.

(Wendy Woods/19900330/Press Contact: Tim Kellogg, Motorola, 708-576-0642)
--- end article