Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!pacbell!pacbell.com!ames!think!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!cbmvax!jesup
From: jesup@cbmvax.commodore.com (Randell Jesup)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Architectural Requirements for Unix (was: upgrades)
Message-ID: <12190@cbmvax.commodore.com>
Date: 3 Jun 90 08:58:42 GMT
References: <29972@cup.portal.com> <1990May14.141148.9884@xavax.com> <7754@crdgw1.crd.ge.com> <30016@cup.portal.com> <1990May19.230618.16090@utzoo.uucp> <383@garth.UUCP> <2286@crdos1.crd.ge.COM> <30418@cup.portal.com>
Reply-To: jesup@cbmvax (Randell Jesup)
Organization: Commodore, West Chester, PA
Lines: 29

In article <30418@cup.portal.com> mmm@cup.portal.com (Mark Robert Thorson) writes:
>In some previous postings, I gave incorrect prices for chips which are
>candidates for "world's cheapest virtual memory demand paged Unix engine".
>
>Correct prices are (in 1000-unit quantity):
...
>Note that an external MMU is required (I don't have pricing for that).
>
>Motorola is about to release the 68020 in a new package with much reduced
>pricing.  I don't know if the information has been formally announced yet,
>so I can't tell you what it is, but I would say that this chip will be
>certainly be the winner as far as low-end Unix machines are concerned.
>If you don't care to run MS-DOS, it's price-performance product will be
>significantly better than the 386SX.

	Check out '030 prices.  They're now available in a solderable
plastic chip carrier (winged leads) in 16 and 25 Mhz (at least), and they
of course have the MMU built in.  Commodore is using them in our new A3000.
I don't know the price, but you could ask Motorola (I'm a software person).
They're supposed to be pretty cheap.  The '030 is considerably faster than
the '020, due to integrated MMU and data cache, and some improvements to
internal execution speeds for some instructions.

	Last I checked they're cheaper than an '020 and '851 pair.

-- 
Randell Jesup, Keeper of AmigaDos, Commodore Engineering.
{uunet|rutgers}!cbmvax!jesup, jesup@cbmvax.cbm.commodore.com  BIX: rjesup  
Common phrase heard at Amiga Devcon '89: "It's in there!"