Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen
From: davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.COM (Wm E Davidsen Jr)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Next computer (Re: CISC Silent Spring)
Message-ID: <2100@crdos1.crd.ge.COM>
Date: 7 Feb 90 20:01:13 GMT
References: <8905@portia.Stanford.EDU> <160@zds-ux.UUCP>
Reply-To: davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.com (bill davidsen)
Organization: GE Corp R&D Center, Schenectady NY
Lines: 31

In article <160@zds-ux.UUCP> gerry@zds-ux.UUCP (Gerry Gleason) writes:

| BTW, what are some current prices on RISC chips?  I have read that
| 80486's are ~950$ in thousand quantity, and someone posted 68040's
| are expected to be ~750$.  I suppose you should include the MMU and
| FPU in the RISC prices since they are on the chip for the comparable
| CISC's, but since a large percentage of users don't need and FPU
| including this unit probably distorts the comparison.  From day one
| I expected RISC processors to get to commodity prices very quickly
| (i.e. prices based almost completely on the cost to make to chip).
| Has that happened yet?

  I think you are making (or almost making) an important point here. One
of the reasons for the interest in the I860 CPU is that a lot of the
glue chips are on the CPU substrate. This allows a RISC UNIX box to be
built for less than a system with separate cache, MMU, and FPU. It makes
the board layout easier, and time to market shorter.

  Please don't read this as "Intel is great," just that there are going
to be some new workstations out (they may be shipping already) with the
860 just for this reason. My personal feeling is that I no longer care
what the CPU looks like or who makes it, I look for available software
and performance, either for one task or general purpose.

  Having explained why vendors were interested in the 860, and what it
offers relative to SPARC, would someone tell me why DG thinks the 88k is
better than SPARC? Serious question, what has the 88k got that SPARC
doesn't? 
-- 
bill davidsen	(davidsen@crdos1.crd.GE.COM -or- uunet!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen)
            "Stupidity, like virtue, is its own reward" -me