Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!helios!xavier.tamu.edu
From: keithp@xavier.tamu.edu (Keith D Perkins)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: in Time, again
Message-ID: <8990@helios.TAMU.EDU>
Date: 11 Oct 90 17:05:09 GMT
Sender: usenet@helios.TAMU.EDU
Organization: Computer Science Department, Texas A&M University
Lines: 23

>I haven't see the article mentioned, but my sources (who are NeXT PR people,
>so you can color that any way you wish) say that NeXT has enough '040s for
>their immediate needs. 

>They tell me that the first large batch of 68040s had a bug which did not
>affect any of the NeXT software because mach does not use the affected 
>opcode.  This bug does sink most of the other companies who would use the 40.
>So NeXT took delivery of the entire batch and can thus release an 040 machine
>well ahead of everyone else.

I don't think anybody will be getting bad 68040 chips. I hazzard a guess
that NeXT was able to start developing on the 68040 much ealier than 
everyone else because they could use the bad chips. As I see it, NeXT
still waited for Motorola to start shipping the chips in volume before
they started shipping their machines, so its likely that the bad chips 
were only in the development platforms running at NeXT Corp.. 

After all that NeXT has done to get these machines on the market, it
would be real doubtful that they would have overlooked something this
basic.

Keith Perkins
Texas A&M University