Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!lll-winken!uunet!dg!rec From: rec@dg.dg.com (Robert Cousins) Newsgroups: comp.arch Subject: Re: 88K vs. MIPS vs. SPARC vs. 386 Message-ID: <162@dg.dg.com> Date: 5 May 89 14:00:21 GMT References: <13089@paris.ics.uci.edu> <1916@se-sd.sandiego.ncr.com> Reply-To: rec@dg.UUCP (Robert Cousins) Distribution: comp Organization: Data General, Westboro, MA. Lines: 43 In article <1916@se-sd.sandiego.ncr.com> lord@se-sd.sandiego.NCR.COM (Dave Lord(SSP)) writes: >In article <13089@paris.ics.uci.edu> roy@bonnie.ics.uci.edu (John M.A. Roy) writes: >>In article , grunwald@flute writes: >>|Does anyone, other than Data General, make an 88K box *available now* that >>|runs a reasonable UNIX (i.e. should be able to run Berkelyish code). Has >>FYI, my rumor mill has it the Data General is dropping the 88K as their >>CPU and are going to MIPS. This is a pretty reliable source. Well, actually, this source wasn't reliable this time. Who was it? DG carefully reviewed the architectures of the major (and not so major) RISC products and decided that the 88K was superior for numerous reasons. It has scoreboarding which allows architectural freedom to change the implementation technology. It has multiprocessor features which makes DG/UX's multprocessor facilities really fly. In fact, it is not very obvious at all why someone would attempt to build a long term architecture on one of the other RISC platforms which doesn't support these features. >I can pretty much guarantee you that the 88K Maverick exists, is going >to be sold, and if not already being shipped will be 'real soon'. The product was announced in February. . . . >I have had the oportunity to use said machine and I may or may not >actually be in the process of developing software which will run on >it. (I can't tell you everything now can I?) However, the machine >works and seems to be customer ready. > >By the way, you didn't hear this from me. :-) Actually, The AViiON series is shipping to Design/Win customers and has been for some period of time. Third party software is being developed throughout the 88/Open on this hardware. It is even being used to develop the ABI validation suite! The hardware has been quite stable for a long time. (I have some very good people working for me! :-) Robert Cousins Dept. Mgr, Workstation Dev't Data General Corp. Speaking for myself alone.