Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!unix.cis.pitt.edu!dsinc!bagate!cbmvax!daveh From: daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy Subject: Re: NeXT software size Message-ID: <21526@cbmvax.commodore.com> Date: 13 May 91 20:55:39 GMT References: <4d7Gypu=1@cs.psu.edu> <21316@cbmvax.commodore.com> <84LR02ly072m01@JUTS.ccc.amdahl.com> Reply-To: daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie) Organization: Commodore, West Chester, PA Lines: 102 In article <84LR02ly072m01@JUTS.ccc.amdahl.com> kls30@DUTS.ccc.amdahl.com (Kent L. Shephard) writes: >In article <21316@cbmvax.commodore.com> daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie) writes: >>As compared to what? The NeXT isn't architecturally that different than any >>high-end personal computer. It is noticably different than traditional >How many personal computers have 2 huge Fujitsu gate arrays with custom >Channel Processors, 9 DMA channels on the cube, 8 on the slab. Well, gee, I seem to have 25 DMA channels on my A3000 just devoted to the Chip bus. A good portion of those are slot assigned, meaning no arbitration or contention. Not to mention more traditional style DMA from Coprocessor and expansion bus. That says to me "well designed personal computer", not "workstation" or "mainframe". But then again, I design computers, not spec sheets for marketing wars. >How many personal computers come with built in twisted pair and thin >ethernet. Not too many. A3000UX comes with thin and thick Ethernet. Where you put real networking, on the motherboard or off, is an arbitrary decision, assuming you have an expansion bus of some kind. Most PC Clones also make it a separate card. So do Macs. IBM RS/6000s. At least some of the HP/Apollos. Suns put on the motherboard. That has something to do with where you expect your computers to be used, nothing to do with whether you're a workstation or not. >How many come with a DSP integrated into the system No PCs or workstations, far as I know. You can get add-in DSPs for Amigas, PC Clones, S-Bus, etc. >with DMA support to peripherals. Amigas have DMA driven hard disk, sound, and floppys. I think the Sun floppy is PIO. >You could not just get DPS and emulate a NeXT like you can do with the Mac >roms and a Mac, Atari, or Amiga for that matter. They have similar hardware. >The NeXT does not. The NeXT OS would port just dandy to an Amiga, if NeXT wanted to port it. The only way you can really "emulate" an OS, like that of the Mac, is if the system really doesn't have any hardware to copy, regardless of what that hardware is. And if it provides a way to support drives that'll let you account for unimportant hardware differences. You wouldn't get any further trying to model a NeXT on an Amiga emulating registers than you would an Amiga on a NeXT. Probably, anyway, the Amiga has 100's of registers that would have to be emulated, the NeXT may not be so complicated. >The expansion may not be faster but form factor is very large. You could >fit 3x as much on NeXTbus card vs. MCA/EISA. Put 5 DSPs on a single >card in a MCA/EISA PC or an Amiga --- I don't think so. The form factor is indeed large. There are Amiga cards with one and two DSPs on them, but 5 would require significant minaturization. Then again, if they can get one on an S-Bus card, you might come close to 4 or 5 on an Amiga card with the same level of shrink. >>Thing is, not everyone wants a Workstation. They are good for certain >>problems, but this latest "pizza box" trend is generating only closed boxes. >I disagree. If you want to fill a variety of needs, get something that >has everything except the kitchen sink thrown in. Something that you can >add lots of memory to (NeXTstation 32 meg, cube 64 meg). Display that >will run all software made for the machine mono or color, etc. I can crank my A3000 up to 146MB today. More later with better memory cards. Thing is, you can't possibly put everything anyone could ever need in one machine and still expect to sell it. Big memory and color display are hardly the only things you'd ever want hooked up to a computer. What about those multiple-DSPs you mentioned. Or maybe some real floating point DSPs or other math crunchers. >When the time comes (in 4-5 years??) and you need more than 32 megabytes >of real memory, it will probably be time for a new machine. We already have that need. I get calls from a guy in Canada once a week asking if we have 128MB more for his A3000. Lots of people doing video work, image rendering and all, need more than 16-32MB. They want more MFLOPs and aren't interested in virtual memory or anything that'll slow the system down. Sure, they're the fringe, but they're just one example. >Other video on a slab is difficult but not impossible. Look at what you >can do with a Mac SE or Classic, I've seen SCSI solutions to their video >limitations. SCSI is much too slow for a great deal of lab things, especially Mac's SCSI. Unless you want to build a whole new computer to sit on the SCSI bus. We have a logic analyzer from BioMation that works that way. The $30,000 box sits under the bench, gathers all the data necessary, and then ever so slowly transfers it to the Mac. Maybe that's OK for this particular setup, with that kind of money involved, but SCSI isn't a general purpose bus, it's only good for moderate speed transfers between two computers. Looking at the $1500 SCSI floppy offered for the NeXT is a good indication of what you can expect in the way of SCSI peripherals. >/* Kent L. Shephard : email - kls30@DUTS.ccc.amdahl.com */ -- Dave Haynie Commodore-Amiga (Amiga 3000) "The Crew That Never Rests" {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh PLINK: hazy BIX: hazy "That's me in the corner, that's me in the spotlight" -R.E.M.