Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!emory!gatech!prism!dali!ken
From: ken@dali.gatech.edu (Ken Seefried iii)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.m88k
Subject: Re: Tektronix shutdown & move away from 88k's??
Message-ID: <15638@hydra.gatech.EDU>
Date: 22 Oct 90 14:18:27 GMT
References: <1536@ftc.framentec.fr> <1990Oct19.120218.9450@canterbury.ac.nz> <15497@hydra.gatech.EDU> <2176@lupine.NCD.COM>
Sender: news@prism.gatech.EDU
Reply-To: ken@dali.gatech.edu (Ken Seefried iii)
Organization: The House Of Fun
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In article <2176@lupine.NCD.COM> rfg@NCD.COM (Ron Guilmette) writes:
>Anyway, even if (over time) that became true, MIPS would *not* be the
>first chip I though of as being (necessarily) the next in line for the
>#2 spot behind Sparc.  (And keep in mind that we are only talking about
>RISC chips now... as far as other chips, the 68xxx and 80x86 still have
>lots of milage left in them, and when it comes to instruction sets in
>general, I imagine that the 370 and VAX instruction sets will be around
>awhile yet).

MIPS doesn't look like much until you start to tally the design-ins
(DEC, Sony, SGI (also resold as CDC and Pr1me), MIPS, etc.).  I'll
have to dig a little to quote solid numbers.

And of *course* I was only refering to RISC stuff.  We'll be stuck
with 370 boxes until 2100...

>                                                       Even if Moto was
>out, what about the i860?  

What about it?  There are only three boxes (that I know of) shipping using
the i860 as a CPU running Unix, and none of them have any kind of
volume.  Certainly, the i860 has a big future as a coprocessor doing
graphics or number crunching, but I don't see it as a mainstream Unix
chip (of course, I'm probably dead wrong...;').  The i960 looks to be
a much nicer Unix chip.

And besides...the i860 is so damn *weird*...

>What about HP PA?  

HP isn't selling 9000/800's like hotcakes (though they are apparently
selling well), and Hitachi is a year away (I think) from bringing an 
HPPA box to market.

>What about the IBM RS/6000 processor?  

I'll buy this one.  IBM is selling RS/6000's as fast as they can make
them, and the *are* fast.  I guess I just have this mental block about
IBM...;')  They have also made whispers about second sourcing the chip
set.

>The last time I heard, MIPS was still a little (basically one product)
>company that was bleeding red ink.  Also, the last thing I heard about
>DEC's push in the (MIPS-based) RISC business was that they were really
>not selling very many DECstations at all.

Both true.  However, other MIPS users are doing pretty well (SGI,
Sony).  The fate of the MIPS architecture is not tied to the success
of MIPS the company.   

I'll have to agree that noone (especially me) can count out any of the
architectures now running around.  However, with Tek gone and DG
going, I don't think that anyone can deny the fact that the 88k is in
a little trouble, as far as being one of the top 2 or 3 players in
the RISC market.

--
	ken seefried iii	"A snear, a snarl, a whip that
	ken@dali.gatech.edu	 stings...these are a few of
				 my favorite things..."