HFISCHER@USC-ECLB.ARPA (07/29/84)
From: Herm Fischer <HFISCHER@USC-ECLB.ARPA> Manny, I, too, was excited over the PC Accelerator board with the 10MHz 8086 and the 8087 Socket. So, I asked my company's Intel repres- entatives when I could get an 8087 at 10 MHz. They provided an official Intel response after checking it out: NEVER. Intel either sees no market or has a technical problem, 8 MHz is as fast as they will go. They say that if somebody is selling a board with the socket for it they should know better, because Intel never had plans to produce one, and never will. Why do you call AT&T's stuff "all crud". I found their own PC, with 123 and flight simulator running at "PC Accelerator" speeds, definiately more professional than PC Accelerator. And I am fas- cinated by the 3b2. 2 MB of memory on little tiny cards. The bellmac chip running Unix V. Full height 5 1/4 winnies without IBM's smaller 10 MB sizing. Ports of microsoft word, multiplan, and Dbase II under Unix V. I can see why Pournelle was fascinated by the 3b2 also. Specifically, what did you find to be crud?? The biggest dissapointment to me: the well-hyped 8086 followon, the '286, in a couple of Japanese boxes, all running Xenix ports. (I presumed these to be representative, in configuration and in software of the "PC-Week Advanced-PC IBM rumor".) These Xenix ports were largely incomplete and poor performers. The vendors all represented them to be displayed as they will be sold. I know SCO can do better, for their PC 8088 port is far more complete, and for the hardware, a significantly better performer. The Intel folks who told me I couldn't ever get a 10 MHz 8087 told me that they knew the Xenix port on the '286 was poor, but then ran down the hall to my management to tell them they were trying to work out the kinks and get it better. They muttered something to a nontechnical type about a "kernel space" problem or hardware limitation as being detrimental to Unix performance. What I want, for a PC Accelerator, is a board with the Bellmac chip and those tiny little 256K Memory chips from the 3b2. Herm Fischer -------