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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!mark
From: mark@cbosgd.UUCP (Mark Horton)
Newsgroups: net.micro.att
Subject: Re: Problems with the 7300
Message-ID: <1190@cbosgd.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 20-May-85 14:42:39 EDT
Article-I.D.: cbosgd.1190
Posted: Mon May 20 14:42:39 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 21-May-85 07:11:01 EDT
References: <166@timeinc.UUCP> <1160@cbosgd.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Columbus, Oh
Lines: 23

>> The article says that the biggest mistake made was the choice of
>> the 68010 instead of the 32100 chip set, and that this mistake
>> was made mostly due to proprietary marketing considerations
>> which no longer existed when the machine was finally completed.

In fact, the 68020-32100 choice (in general, not specifically for the 7300)
is a somewhat controversial political decision.  On technical grounds,
the two aren't that different in practice, since we do all the coding in C
anyway.  The 32100 is a full 32 bit chip, as was the 32000, and the
then-available 68000 wasn't quite 32 bits.  But the 68K also costs less
than the 32K, and was available sooner internally.  So many prototypes
were built with the 68K, like the Blit, and later turned into products
like the 5620 containing a 32000.

The decision to use the 68K in the 7300 seems to have been made by
Convergent Technologies, not AT&T, and they were dealing with a part
of AT&T IS that was actually willing to consider selling a product
was not manufactured from the wire up by AT&T (this is almost unheard
of, for those of you on the outside), so they were less constrained by
politics.  The decision was apparently made nearly 2 years ago, when
AT&T had only the 32000, and it was in short supply.  If they had it to
do over again, the 32100 might make sense (but I am not familiar with
the cost/performance/etc issues comparing the 32100 and the 68020.)