Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!ames!hao!husc6!bbn!rochester!PT.CS.CMU.EDU!FAS.RI.CMU.EDU!schmitz
From: schmitz@FAS.RI.CMU.EDU (Donald Schmitz)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: 68882
Message-ID: <960@PT.CS.CMU.EDU>
Date: 25 Feb 88 14:12:42 GMT
References: <489@mv04.ecf.toronto.edu>
Sender: netnews@PT.CS.CMU.EDU
Organization: Carnegie-Mellon University, CS/RI
Lines: 15
Keywords: swap

|has anyone out there in 680x0 workstation land yet attempted to replace the
|68881 with a 68882 as was done by some writer in Byte a few months ago? it
|would be interesting to see if, first people have actually gotten hold of
|one of these chips, and as important if the swap was as smooth and as
|profitable as the Byte article suggested. by the way, does anyone have an
|idea as to the cost of these chips in small (non-OEM) quantities.

We just placed an order for sample parts, Motorola claims they are
available.  I'll post results if/when the parts actually arrive.  Prices I
got were ~$400 for 20 MHz and ~$550 for 25 MHz.  We are going to try a 25
MHz part in a SUN 3/260, SUN claims their UNIX can handle it (SUN 3/200s
come with 20 MHz 68881s, but a 25 MHz FPU clock is jumper selectable).
Given the clock speed up and estimates for the '882, we are hoping for a
50% floating point improvement.

Don Schmitz (schmitz@fas.ri.cmu.edu)