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From: massengi@unx.sas.com (Darrell Massengill)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.m88k
Subject: Re: Tektronix shutdown & move away from 88k's??
Message-ID: <1990Nov14.142702.19478@unx.sas.com>
Date: 14 Nov 90 14:27:02 GMT
References: <TOM.90Oct22074015@hcx2.ssd.csd.harris.com> <1990Oct25.183519.19324@iconsys.uucp> <42487@mips.mips.COM>
Organization: SAS Institute Inc.
Lines: 55

In article <42487@mips.mips.COM> mash@mips.COM (John Mashey) writes:
>
>The 88K list I use in public talks includes the following (please correct
>me or update if I'm wrong; I prefer not to show incorrect info about
>competitors):
>1)Shipping:Motorola, DG, Sanyo/ICON, Tadpole Technology, Dolphin, Omron, Harris,
>BBN, Encore (Alpha or Beta), Avalon, Force.
>2) Dropped out: Tektronix, Stratus, Everex/Opus (maybe), NCR
>3) Not yet: Unisys
>4) From Moto's 4Q89 list of design-ins (don't know status):
>Ellemtel, Northern Telecom, Omnicomp, Prometa, Aitech Systems, Ltd, Raytheon,
>Smiths Industries, Thomson, MCC Experimental Systems, JPL.
>
>From other notes, it sound like I might add Philips (as the system division
>OEMs 88K boxes, although the embedded folks are doing SPARC stuff.)
>
>In Europe, almost everybody seems to be committed except Olivetti.
>(ICL to SPARC; Dolphin to 88K; most of rest to MIPS).
>In the U.S., major uncommitteds include Apple, Compaq, Zenith, Dell, etc.
>In Far East, it's mostly SPARC & MIPS, with a few players yet to be
>committed.
>-- 

Yes, but remember it "ain't" over 'til its over. 
I don't know if anyone is really "committed".  For example,
Electronic News (Oct 29) had 2 articles that indicated
that people "committed" to MIPS were moving away.
  It indicated that Stardent which has MIPS boxes, was
  going to move to the '860 chip for the "next-generation"
  systems. (page 13). 
  And the article on the new DEC RISC architecture indicated that
  DEC will be moving away from MIPS (at least long term). The 
  DEC official said "MIPS is not a big company and may not be
  able to move as fast as we can.". (page 8).

Motorola is a "big company" with a fair amount of financial support.
They can hang in there for a long time and vendors will likely move to
them just because of that.   

I don't think you can count anyone out yet.  I think that there are
likely to be shifting commitments for some number of years, especially
as the architectural limitations of some of the chips are encountered.


And speaking of your "public talks" (should be "sales pitches")...
I have heard one and they are a "little slanted", don't you think?
And SINCE you have counted the 88000 as a "non-survivor" (0nly SPARC
and MIPS survive in your talks), why do you express such an interest
in this news group talking about an architecture that is "dead"?

Disclaimer:  Opinions are mine, mine, mine...

-- 
Darrell Massengill    Manager of Host Development   SAS Institute Inc.
massengi@unx.sas.com  (919) 677-8000 x7658          SAS Campus Dr, Cary, NC