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From: hodas@eniac.seas.upenn.edu (Josh Hodas)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.misc,comp.os.misc,comp.misc,comp.arch
Subject: Re: The NeXT machine has been announced! (long)
Message-ID: <5647@netnews.upenn.edu>
Date: 15 Oct 88 19:19:58 GMT
References: <360@elan.UUCP> <2070@cloud9.UUCP>
Sender: news@netnews.upenn.edu
Reply-To: hodas@eniac.seas.upenn.edu.UUCP (Josh Hodas)
Organization: University of Pennsylvania
Lines: 36

In article <2070@cloud9.UUCP> cme@cloud9.UUCP (Carl Ellison) writes:
>In article <360@elan.UUCP>, jlo@elan.UUCP (Jeff Lo) writes:
>> 
>> The entire CPU board consists of 45 chips as compared to 100+ for a fast
>> PC and 300+ for a typical workstation. Everything has been crammed onto
>> a 12 inch square board through the use of very dense surface mounted
>> devices, and a few large custom CMOS chips. 
>
>By my calculator, 45 chips in 144 square inches
>gives 3.2 sq.in. per chip, on the average.
>
>Since a number of those need to be memory (therefore not monster PGAs),
>I don't see the need to cram.
>
>What's up here?
>
>
>--Carl Ellison          ...!harvard!anvil!es!cme    (normal mail address)
>                        ...!ulowell!cloud9!cme      (usenet news reading)

Well, It seems clear that the 45 chip count does not include the memory.
If we make the fairly safe assumption that Jobs is using nothing bigger
than 1 Megabit drams, then the 8 megs standard in the machine would require
64 chips (assuming no parity check bit), so it must be 45 chips in addition
to ram.

Josh

-------------------------

Josh Hodas    (hodas@eniac.seas.upenn.edu)
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