Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!olivea!samsung!usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!jato!vsnyder
From: vsnyder@jato.jpl.nasa.gov (Van Snyder)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: Atari cpu evolution
Message-ID: <1991Apr10.173222.17378@jato.jpl.nasa.gov>
Date: 10 Apr 91 17:32:22 GMT
References: <12229@uhccux.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu> <2318@lee.SEAS.UCLA.EDU> <12371@uhccux.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu>
Reply-To: vsnyder@jato.Jpl.Nasa.Gov (Van Snyder)
Organization: Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, CA
Lines: 28

In article <12371@uhccux.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu> kiki@uhunix1.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu (Jack W. Wine) writes:
>
>It's hard to make predictions, but it seems certain that one of the dominant
>OS running on the new processors will be UNIX and the SPARC RISC was designed
>to run it optimally.  Also, Sun's decision to have an open architecture is 
>resulting in a flood of systems based on the SPARC chip set....

From an article in April Datamation, I see that Sparc International is only
half-open: Their "shrink-wrap" API requires Sun-OS.  The article was about
the 88000.  88Open doesn't require a certain OS to be compliant.  As a result,
even though only 6 US vendors have picked the 88000, there are over 2000
applications available, while for the Sparc, with some 30 or so vendors using
it, there are only about 2500 applications.  The article praised the 88000 and
88Open on technical grounds, but mentioned that Motorola's marketing was
"methodical at best."  It also mentioned that Motorola has cut the 88000 price
by 2/3, and that the 88010 will be out "soon".  Top-of-the-line 88000 is
about as fast for non-floating-point as the fastest Sparc or MIPS, but has
better support for multiprocessor architectures (according to Harris, who
build a multiprocessor server from it).  When 88010 is available it should
be substantially faster, even for floating point, than current Sparc or MIPS.
That is, almost as fast as the new HP PA chips %).  (57 and 76 Mips are the
speeds the newest HP machines are guaranteed not to exceed.  $k12 and $k20 in
greyscale, diskless.)

-- 
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