Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!ames!oliveb!amiga!jimm
From: jimm@amiga.UUCP (Jim Mackraz)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.misc
Subject: Re: The NeXT machine has been announced! (short!)
Message-ID: <3022@amiga.UUCP>
Date: 14 Oct 88 20:54:53 GMT
References: <360@elan.UUCP> <3292@pt.cs.cmu.edu>
Reply-To: jimm@cloyd.UUCP (Jim Mackraz)
Organization: Commodore-Amiga Inc, Los Gatos CA
Lines: 36

In article <3292@pt.cs.cmu.edu> ralphw@ius3.ius.cs.cmu.edu (Ralph Hyre) writes:
)[followups directed to comp.sys.misc]
)
)Does this mean that all of the circuitry is on NuBUS cards, or did they
)put some stuff on the motherboard, leaving the CPU and DSP on the backplane?
)What is really on the CPU board (030, 882, and 1M memory?)
)How much memory is in the base configuration?
)					- Ralph W. Hyre, Jr.

I don't know what circutry might be on the backplane, but a hell of a 
lot is on the motherboard.  Regarding NuBus specifically, they have
cranked it up and claim they will offer an interface chip for $25 
to developers (a good idea, if it works out).

On the motherboard (CPU board, I guess you'd call it on a backplane),
there is:
    CPU
    FPU
    DSP + 8KB static ram
    8MB ram (up to 16MB on cpu board) using 1Mb chips (they tried
      to insure that it would work with 4Mb chips, but couldn't try it)
    256KB Frame buffer and grayscale video control
    ICP - Integrated Channel Processor (one of two big "Mainframes on a
      chip", according to The Steve)
    OSP - Optical Storage Processor
      includes ECC, disk controller, also DMA control for laser printer,
      SCC, SCSI, clock, power on/off circuitry

So, yep, it is one incredible f*cking CPU board, no question about it.

	jimm
-- 
	Jim Mackraz, I and I Computing	  
	amiga!jimm	BIX:jmackraz
Opinions are my own.  Comments regarding the Amiga operating system, and
all others, are not to be taken as Commodore official policy.