Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!bellcore!decvax!decwrl!labrea!agate!pasteur!ames!amdahl!nsc!grenley
From: grenley@nsc.nsc.com (George Grenley)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.nsc.32k
Subject: Re: NS32000 computer kit wishlist
Message-ID: <4974@nsc.nsc.com>
Date: 17 Feb 88 23:43:06 GMT
References: <3703@bcsaic.UUCP> <4953@nsc.nsc.com> <193@jim.odr.oz>
Reply-To: grenley@nsc.UUCP (George Grenley)
Organization: National Semiconductor, Sunnyvale
Lines: 51

It's nice to hear from so many potential friends out there...

In article <193@jim.odr.oz> jon@jim.odr.oz (Jon Wells) writes:

>My pocket money doesn't stretch to the $US50k for a Unix source Lic.

It doesn't??? 8-)

National is developing a binary reconfigurable Unix (ie you don't gotta buy
a source license).  It won't be ready for a few months, and I don't know
what the price will be, except << 50K, but hey, it's a start.

Also, a gentlemen from Sweden posted here recently that their computer club
had a Unix distribution for something around $300-400, or so.

Last but not least, as you may have heard, Heurikon is developing a 32532
VME board.  I imagine (but don't know) if they'll do Unix for it - you could
ask...


>The National people in this country wouldn't know if their whatsit
>was on fire, so their not going to be of any help.

Oh, dear, another "happy" customer...  8-)


>Maybe National could offer to help with such a thing.
>  It could be good for them if it was a reasonable box and if it
>  was I think you might find a few people apart from the odd
>  hardware hackers using it.


Actually, we would help. Possibly.  NSC has a partners program for 32000 family
products, and if it makes business sense (read $$$) we might be able to do
something.  Speaking unofficially here, though, I can say that we would want
to see a plan from a reliable source, not an unknown (Jon, I'm not saying 
you are an unknown - just that the typical undergarduate engineering project
is NOT what we're looking for)

>Maybe I'll just live with the Pc at home until I win a lottery,
> then I'll go buy a Sun!

For shame, for shame!  Buy one of our 532 Unix boxes - it's much faster than
a Sun (even Sparc), and it will keep me employed!!!


Remember:   NSC 32532 - "All the performance without the Risc!"

George Grenley
person in charge of stuff like the VME532
NSC