Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!swrinde!mips!winchester!mash From: mash@mips.COM (John Mashey) Newsgroups: comp.arch Subject: Re: MIPS, Compaq and Microsoft in bed - NYT story Message-ID: <45775@mips.mips.COM> Date: 11 Feb 91 16:51:23 GMT References: <29920@usc> Sender: news@mips.COM Reply-To: mash@mips.COM (John Mashey) Organization: MIPS Computer Systems, Inc. Lines: 52 In article <29920@usc> ajayshah@alhena.usc.edu (Ajay Shah) writes: > >The business section of NYT yesterday had a story on MIPS; >if not anything else, a early product announcement gets you >publicity! > >The article mentioned plans of going up to 50 mips using the new >technology. Isn't 50 mips pretty attainable using incremental >growth of implementation on top of SPARC/MIPS architectures? >Surely announcing a new architecture needs more justification >than performance like 50mips? > >Is 64 bits important? IEEE doubles are 80 bits anyway; what >kinds of instructions will run a lot better with 64 bits? A lot >of integer-performance kind of work is manipulating small objects >(<= 32 bits) anyway, a wider bus wouldn't change anything. Or >would it? > >How is MIPS faring? Does someone have hard data for market share? >The NYT article mentioned the SPARC installed base as being >1.18e5 machines; that bullshit - this is more like one years >sales for Sun alone. > >Today's NYT has an article on how Microsoft will do a portable >OS/2 on the R4000 and Compaq will take the lead in producing the >machine. This is truly truly vaporware! A hypothetical CPU in a >hypothetical machine running a hypothetical OS. Frankly, given >the timescales involved in getting all the ingredients debugged >and shipping in volume, I wouldn't give this much attention. Two >years in this business is a long long time! > >The only ghost-of-a-chance derives from Windows applications -- >if Microsoft is smart enough they could setup a 100% portability >on the new machine. You just copy your files over and say "make" >(i.e., if OS/2 has a make). > >But can you imagine nice machines (I have nothing against MIPS >and Compaq) running Windows!! (AckUgh) What a waste -- no shell >windows you can fire etc. > >-- >_______________________________________________________________________________ >Ajay Shah, (213)734-3930, ajayshah@usc.edu > The more things change, the more they stay insane. >_______________________________________________________________________________ -- -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 Brought to you by Super Global Mega Corp .com