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From: lee@ut-ngp.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.micro
Subject: Re: Pyramid 90x
Message-ID: <483@ut-ngp.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 11-Aug-83 15:52:52 EDT
Article-I.D.: ut-ngp.483
Posted: Thu Aug 11 15:52:52 1983
Date-Received: Sat, 13-Aug-83 03:02:23 EDT
References: mddc.209
Lines: 31

The Pyramid 90x that was described in the August 11 issue of Electronics
is an interesting machine. It is a reduced instruction set (RISC) system
that will eventually support multiple CPUs in a very closely coupled
environment (on the same bus). The present system is a single CPU that
can have multiple "performance modules". An terminal controller
offloads some of the tty driver work from the CPU; there is a floating
point board and an array processor board; and several other possibilities.
The people at Pyramid seem to be very sharp and understand Unix well. They
are (will be) selling a combination Berkeley 4.2 and System 5 with the
4.2 TCP/IP networking code. It appears to be a high performance system.
Pyramid claims 2 to 5 times faster than a Vax 780. I played briefly with
a prototype system at NCC. Pyramid had just gotten the machine up a few
weeks before so there were still some missing pieces but it was fast for
doing C compiles (noticeably faster than an unloaded 780). Their prices
are generally less than for Vaxes ($100K - $300K). Pyramid claims their
90x can support 128 interactive users. They have a 32 MB/sec bus and an
interesting register set (528 registers). A memory cache also improves
performance (Pyramid claims 80% to 85% cache hits). Memory management
(using the 4.1C demand paging algorithm) supports up to 8 MB real memory
with 4K instruction cache and 32K data cache (125 ns cache). With 256K
chips, main memory can be expanded to 32MB real memory. Pyramid has already
installed their first beta system at a major Eastern University and expect
to start shipping "real" customers this fall. Pyramid is located at 1295
Charleston Rd., Mountain View, Ca. 94043. Phone number is (415) 965-7200.


Bill Lee
University of Texas

The above information is from discussions with Pyramid and the article
in Aug 11 Electronics. I am not affiliated in any way with Pyramid Tech.