Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!iuvax!rutgers!apple!oliveb!tymix!cirrusl!sunkist!grenley
From: grenley@sunkist.UUCP (George Grenley)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.nsc.32k
Subject: Re: Ex-national employees un-niceties
Message-ID: <1198@cirrusl.UUCP>
Date: 29 Dec 89 23:45:56 GMT
References: <1914@minyos.xx.rmit.oz> <410@sibyl.eleceng.ua.OZ> <1168@cirrusl.UUCP> <13471@nsc.nsc.com> <1192@cirrusl.UUCP> <279@leia.WV.TEK.COM>
Sender: news@cirrusl.UUCP
Reply-To: grenley@sunkist (George Grenley)
Organization: CIRRUS LOGIC Inc.
Lines: 56

In article <279@leia.WV.TEK.COM> johnt@opus.WV.TEK.COM (John Theus) writes:
>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.  

Actualy, I've had a number of productive conversations with Opus, and
their 32k stuff works well.  I own a 32032 based unix board for my PC.

>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.

Yes, they reversed their position on this when Siemens, which OEMs Sequnet
boxes in Europe, asked them to continue the line.  Although I'm sure 
SEquent won't say so in so many words, though, the reason they built
a '532 box was 'cuz Siemens made them, more or less.

John, I'm curious about a couple of things.  One, is Opus still
selling the '532 board?  I assume so.  Two, are you planning a "732"
(or whatever NSC calls the follow-on to the '532) board?  Three, how
did you work around the problem where the '532 hangs if you write a
floating point number across a page boundary, and you fault on the
second page?  The '532 hangs on this condition, I believe - but I 
may be incorrect on this.


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