Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!bbn!rochester!rutgers!mailrus!ames!vsi1!wyse!mips!sultra!dtynan
From: dtynan@sultra.UUCP (Der Tynan)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.nsc.32k
Subject: Re: The 'cost' of a '532 system (Long).
Summary: *who* missed the boat?
Keywords: cheap nsc 532
Message-ID: <2677@sultra.UUCP>
Date: 23 Nov 88 03:29:19 GMT
References: <433@sdrc.UUCP> <2659@sultra.UUCP> <1041@raspail.UUCP> <17658@gatech.edu>
Distribution: eunet,world
Organization: Tynan Computers, Sunnyvale, CA
Lines: 84

In article <17658@gatech.edu>, ken@gatech.edu (Ken Seefried iii) writes:
> 
> In article <2667@sultra.UUCP> dtynan@sultra.UUCP (Der Tynan) writes:
> >Sure, the '332 may be just great today, but what about next year?  Will we
> >have to start over again?  
> 
> I belive you have missed the whole boat here.  People are talking about
> building an *inexpensive* yet reasonably powered machine.

Hmm.  Amusing comment at best.  Check the original reference.  *I* was the one
pushing for an *inexpensive* machine.  I *still* am.  But, one has to look at
the price/performance curve as well.  On top of that, if there is already an
organization in place (the '532 Manifesto) to build a '532 system, why go
in competition to that effort.  What I would like to see, is an overall vote
or consensus of opinion as to a CPU type.  I am open to comment.  I happen
to have a 6MHz 32032 chipset in my desk, which is slowly ageing.

> Next year, my
> friend, the 32532 will be passe also, thechnology moves pretty damn fast these
> days.

Maybe the thing to do is just give up then.  I mean, if we can't expect to be
reasonably ahead of the game, let's just stick to our 4.77MHz Intel stuff :-)
I doubt very much if the '532 will be obsolete next year.  This is a gross
exaggeration.  Ask yourself when was the 68K first designed, and furthermore,
what was Moto's best year for shipping the things.  I would be inclined to
agree that the 32016 won't be worth much next year, but come on.  The '532?
Sequent is only now shipping their '532 CPU cards.

> The 532 cost big $$$, the memory to feed the 532 cost big $$$, and the
> IO capacity to feed the 532 costs, you guessed it, big $$$.  Like the National
> Semi guys have been saying, if you want a 532, talk to Heurikon, they did it
> right.

This is not true.  It may be safe to say that the '532 chip is expensive.
However, what kind of extortion can we pull on NSC?  On the other hand,
whether you use a Mips processor or a Z80, the DRAM will be 150ns SIMMS.
This is fixed.  Nothing to do with the CPU speed.  If you want to avoid
wait-states, just use the "paging scheme" hinted at by Steve Wilson.  This
should give you the 50ns eaten by the MMU at least.  And this is without
using 15ns cache chips.  Furthermore, since when did I/O feed the CPU.
The '332 and '532 (and maybe even the '032 -- Steve??) allow dynamic
resizing of the bus.  In this way, the CPU could access a vanilla IBM-PC
bus, without major surgery.

> The 386SX is a 16-bit data bus version of the 386 (akin to the 8088/8086
> pair).  The idea is to reduce system cost by reducing the nessesary memory and
> IO bandwidth.

See above.  The NSC stuff can support smaller bus sizing, without needing to
change the chip.  At last, a chip designer with an IQ :-)

> That certainly goes both ways.  As I said, i like BSD, but that is religion,
> and religion only.  Both systems are getting VERY close feature wise.

You're right.  Let's leave the SysV/BSD thing to religious fanatics.
Personally, over the long haul, I think Mach is the way to go, because the
kernel threatens to be public domain (or equiv).  It will still need utilities,
but that's what GNU is for.

> Another point of interest:  the 80386, along with the 3b2 and the SPARC are
> targets for the official AT&T reference ports of future AT&T Unixes, which
> means that other than device drivers, Unix will compile off the tape for these
> processors.  This is NOT the case for the NS chips, which (at least) will need
> the memory management code rewritten, along with tons of other kernal stuff.
> Not slamming the NS chips, just stating the facts....

> 	ken seefried iii	...!{akgua, allegra, amd, harpo, hplabs, 

Again, this is the beauty of Mach, that the VM stuff has been designed to be
easily ported.  As for the AT&T support, you have been misled.  I recently
attended an AT&T lecture on R4.0, and the three processors listed above,
are just people who have ABI's.  Motorola will soon be added to the list.
If National wants to, they can pay the money and join up.  Personally, I don't
care.  I'd rather not use a brain-dead system just because I didn't have to
write any code when I first took it out of the box.  Most of us are talking
about a system for the "long-haul".  Furthermore, the notion that we'll
upgrade the OS every time AT&T releases a new version is nice, but unrealistic.
						- Der
-- 
	dtynan@zorba.Tynan.COM  (Dermot Tynan @ Tynan Computers)
	{apple,mips,pyramid,uunet}!Tynan.COM!dtynan

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