Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!ut-emx!ccwf.cc.utexas.edu From: dboles@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (David Boles) Newsgroups: comp.arch Subject: Re: Lead time to a working system. Message-ID: <48857@ut-emx.uucp> Date: 12 May 91 01:59:34 GMT References: <1991Apr30.191117.4373@vax5.cit.cornell.edu> <576@appserv.Eng.Sun.COM> <3411@spim.mips.COM> Sender: news@ut-emx.uucp Reply-To: dboles@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu (David Boles) Distribution: comp Organization: The University of Texas at Austin Lines: 34 In article <3411@spim.mips.COM> zalman@mips.com (Zalman Stern) writes: >>Let's suppose that I could get one [R4000] 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 agressive schedule. >>I still have to have an OS that runs on the thing. Call it another 9 >>months on an extremely aggresive schedule. > >An appropriate word for companies which don't aggressively pipeline this >process in the 90's is "roadkill." You can simulate all this stuff without >working chips. Here's a quote from HP's "CMOS PA-RISC Processor for a New >Family of Workstations", Mark Forsyth et al. (this years ISSCC >proceedings): I think you are both on the wrong track. The reason that the ACE time- table is unrealistic is software. Microsoft started started on OS/2 5 years ago and the system has only been really ready for a year. They announced DOS5.0 (right after Digital Research did their DRDOS5) about a year ago and we haven't seen it yet (and this is DOS !!). SysVr4 has been out for a while yet but almost nobody has it working on machines yet, and these machines are known quantities. I think that it will be late 1993 before you see OS/2 NT running on r4000's and late 1992 for ACE to have any machines on the proverbial shelves. Can anyone even name an OS that was completed on time? -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- David Boles Applied Research Laboratories dboles@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu DOS is severely brain-damaged, apas611@chpc.utexas.edu so just pull the plug and let it DIE. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------