Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!mcsun!ukc!dcl-cs!aber-cs!athene!pcg From: pcg@cs.aber.ac.uk (Piercarlo Grandi) Newsgroups: comp.arch Subject: "Rumours" from BYTE - November 1990 Message-ID: Date: 12 Nov 90 18:10:03 GMT Sender: pcg@aber-cs.UUCP Organization: Coleg Prifysgol Cymru Lines: 35 Nntp-Posting-Host: odin I would like to draw attention to the latest issue of BYTE, November 1990, which I have just received today. On page 19: "Minimalist architecture promises speed, chips that can mimic others" ------------------------------------------------------------------- It is about a very fast superscalar MISC that is degiend to emulate other architectures at hgh speed, like Sinclair's. On page 24: "TI's new printer technology does it with mirrors" -------------------------------------------------------------- It is about microengineered mirrors on the syrface of a chip, used to deflect lasers. This is interesting for things like laser printers and optical disks. Note however that the technology is old -- several years ago I read an article on it in the IBM RD Journal, and I suspect it is already used in some IBM product. On page 28: "AMD accelerates RISC line with FPU" ------------------------------------------------ The AMD 29050 has an embedded FPU claimed to have a peak speed of 80 MFLOPS, with frequencies from 20Mhz to 40Mhz (two flops per cycle?). I would also like to draw attention to one article in the "state of the art" section: on page 283 there is "Crystal clear storage", which, if delivered, could radically change the tradeoffs in the designs of computers and operating systems and databases. Also, in the "feature" section: page 342; the most interesting material in the sort term may be on pages 348-350, for GaAs and JJ technologies. Apparently there is a TI 150Mhz 6-stage pipeline GaAs RISC, and in Japan ETL has a prototype of a 1Ghz 4-chip RISC... -- Piercarlo Grandi | ARPA: pcg%uk.ac.aber.cs@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk Dept of CS, UCW Aberystwyth | UUCP: ...!mcsun!ukc!aber-cs!pcg Penglais, Aberystwyth SY23 3BZ, UK | INET: pcg@cs.aber.ac.uk