Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!zephyr.ens.tek.com!uw-beaver!mit-eddie!wuarchive!usc!apple!mips!winchester!mash From: mash@mips.COM (John Mashey) Newsgroups: comp.sys.m88k Subject: Re: Tektronix shutdown & move away from 88k's?? Message-ID: <42413@mips.mips.COM> Date: 26 Oct 90 03:59:17 GMT References: <1536@ftc.framentec.fr> <1990Oct19.120218.9450@canterbury.ac.nz> <15497@hydra.gatech.EDU> <2176@lupine.NCD.COM> <42310@mips.mips.COM> Sender: news@mips.COM Reply-To: mash@mips.COM (John Mashey) Organization: MIPS Computer Systems, Inc. Lines: 35 In article jdarcy@encore.com (Jeff d'Arcy) writes: >mash@mips.COM (John Mashey) writes: >>Of course it is not the demise. I do suspect that it means there is >>little likelihood of 88K presence in the higher end of the technical >>workstation market, leaving as possibilities mid-range (maybe, due to >>DG, Omron), and multi-user commercial (seems more likely: Moto, DG, Norsk). >I don't know about this part. Encore's plans for the 88K are pretty hefty >machines, and Dolphin's not too far off the mark either. I wouldn't be at >all surprised if DG had some plans for a big 88K multi either. My personal >opinion is quite the opposite of yours: I think SPARC and MIPS will have >most of the workstation market (low and high end, respectively) but that >the 88K will become more popular in the high end servers, especially multis. >The obvious exception to this trend is SGI (and, in the future, DEC), but >overall I think 88Ks will sell into that market very well. Hmmm. I hadn't split it out that way, but certainly could be possible. Encore is using standard 88K's (I think), so that one kind of depends on the performance track of the 88100 over the next year or so, compared with the {SPARC, MIPS, IBM RS/6000} high-end tracks. DG has described an ECL project, as has Dolphin, but at least one of the those dates (and maybe both) that I've seen was 1992. Hence, if there are going to be big technical servers in 1991, it's probably up to Encore... If there aren't some in this market in 1991, 1992 won't matter very much... I will observe that the 88100 (as shown on SPEC data anyway), is better at integer & 32-bit FP than 64-bit FP, which will tend to keep 88100-based machines away from the parts of the market that like 64-bit FP, given the other competition that's out there. (Of course, plenty of the technical market doesn't need 64-bit FP). -- -john mashey DISCLAIMER: UUCP: mash@mips.com OR {ames,decwrl,prls,pyramid}!mips!mash DDD: 408-524-7015, 524-8253 or (main number) 408-720-1700 USPS: MIPS Computer Systems, 930 E. Arques, Sunnyvale, CA 94086