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From: johnt@opus.WV.TEK.COM (John Theus;685-2564;61-183;625-6654;hammer)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.nsc.32k
Subject: Re: Ex-national employees un-niceties
Message-ID: <279@leia.WV.TEK.COM>
Date: 23 Dec 89 10:17:51 GMT
References: <1914@minyos.xx.rmit.oz> <410@sibyl.eleceng.ua.OZ> <1168@cirrusl.UUCP> <13471@nsc.nsc.com> <1192@cirrusl.UUCP>
Sender: johnt@leia.WV.TEK.COM
Reply-To: johnt@opus.WV.TEK.COM (John Theus)
Organization: Tektronix, Inc., Wilsonville, OR
Lines: 36

In article <1192@cirrusl.UUCP> grenley@sunkist (George Grenley) writes:
>
>National's commitment to the 32k has been uneven and ragged.  Ask the
>customers - Sequent, for instance, which switched to the '386 for their
>new model, after getting a 32032 out the door.  Tektronix, which basically
>never could get them to work right.
>

Well Mr. Grenley, its obvious that you never talked to this NSC customer
since your knowledge of the facts is wrong.  I was the hardware project
leader for the 32032-based workstation.  Following that project, I was
the hardware project leader for a faster second generation 32016 workstation;
someone else did the first generation 32016 box.

Just to make it perfectly clear, there would not have been a second
generation product if the first generation products had not worked.  I'm
typing this article on my 32032 box which has been my home workstation
since it was build about 5 years ago.

Now this is not to say that we didn't have problems getting the silicon to
work reliably back then, but NSC and we worked through them.  I've worked
with several new processors over the years, the latest being an 88k
design that we starting shipping several months ago, and in every case
we've had trouble with the silicon.  That's just part of trying to be one
of the first to use a new chip.

As for NSC being uneven and ragged, show a major cpu vendor that hasn't
been at one time or another.  I've had complaints for everyone of them.

Finally, the other fact you ignored is besides building a 386-based box,
Sequent upgraded their 32032 box to the 32532.

John Theus                                johnt@opus.wv.tek.com
Futurebus+ Parallel Protocol Coordinator
Tektronix, Inc.
Interactive Technologies Div. - shipping the Futurebus-based XD88 workstations