Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!me!yap
From: yap@me.utoronto.ca (Davin Yap)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: on IBM systems
Message-ID: <1990Feb22.132607.4856@me.toronto.edu>
Date: 22 Feb 90 18:26:07 GMT
References: <36189@mips.mips.COM> <14900004@hpdmd48.HP.COM>
Lines: 19

sritacco@hpdmd48.HP.COM (Steve Ritacco) writes:
>If I had to
>guess what is going on, I would guess that access to the I-cache is
>very wide, 

It's 4 words wide, and they claim a transfer rate (if memory serves me :)
of some 400 Mbytes/sec.  The problem here is that you have to buy their
memory which is incredibly expensive: $6000+ CDN for 8 megabytes.

>On a side note, does IBM think workstation boxes need to be ugly to
>be impressive, or was their industrial design team out to lunch?

I fully agree here!  These things (especially the 320) are the ugliest boxes
money can buy.  Certainly this all sprang from the PS/2 line and their
want of uniformity, but $20+K workstations should be things that blend
smoothly into an aesthetic, modern office environment, they should be
shown off not hidden.  I'm all for diminutive, brown & purple
pizzaboxes (no smiley).
--