Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!ists!yunexus!davecb
From: davecb@yunexus.YorkU.CA (David Collier-Brown)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Will NeXT survive?  Grow with the times?
Message-ID: <22695@yunexus.YorkU.CA>
Date: 10 May 91 12:20:26 GMT
References: <1991Apr30.191117.4373@vax5.cit.cornell.edu> <576@appserv.Eng.Sun.COM>
Distribution: comp
Organization: York U. Computing Services
Lines: 51

umh@vax5.cit.cornell.edu writes:
| A MIPS rep today told me to expect ACE machines (the compaq/microsoft etc
| group) at $2K to $5K in Q2 92.Of course these will be no cache except the 8K+8K
| on the R4000, and crippled in various other ways to be as cheap as possible,
| but will presumably still be far above PC/Mac/Amiga performance.

lm@slovax.Eng.Sun.COM (Larry McVoy) writes:
| I don't normally get into this sort of thing and probably shouldn't now,
| but I find this statement a little hard to stomach.  Are R4000's even taped
| out yet?  Maybe I missed something, but I thought that the R4000 was a 
| future chip.

  So did I...

  Before anyone jumps on Larry for his time estimates, realize that Sun has
been having to work **very hard** to get their time-to-first-system down,
and that the discussion of those concerns and overheads has spread widely
within sun, to the extent that people on the faaaaaaar outside get to hear
about them [Howard Lee spoke about this at University of Toronto last
November]

  Now the criticisms (:-))

| Let's suppose that I could get one in my grubby little paws today.
| I still have to build a motherboard, a case, all that glob.  Call it
| 9 months of a very aggressive schedule.
| I still have to have an OS that runs on the thing.  Call it another 9
| months on an extremely aggressive schedule.

  Ok, lets postulate that one elects to run ahead a while before announcing:
This in principle allows us to do a new case-and-peripherals design before
we start on the motherboard, and plan to use a shipped OS with a very
``spare'' set of device drivers.
  That leaves us with a motherboard to design and rush into production.
It's risky (if you make a mistake you lose credibility as well as sales, and
the announcement bottlenecks your existing small-system sales), but you can
get this baby out the door in nine months if you put enough mothers on it
(:-))

--dave

| Q2 '92?  I suppose it could happen.  I'll be very impressed.

  I would be too, and I wouldn't like to try it myself!

--dave (does this have anything to do with architecture-in-the-large?) c-b
-- 
David Collier-Brown,  | davecb@Nexus.YorkU.CA | lethe!dave
72 Abitibi Ave.,      | 
Willowdale, Ontario,  |  Today's featured dish:
CANADA. 416-223-8968  |      Sun-dried alligator.