davis@ucla-cs.UUCP (01/27/86)
Reprinted from the Washington Area Rainbow Users Group newsletter without permission: "A few predictions...DEC is scheduled to announce three new VAXes on January 29th. The word is that they will be called the 8200, 8300 and 8800...they will all feature the new BI bus...the 8200 will have about the same power as 780, and the same footprint, but will not be as tall... it will have a single cpu...the 8300 will look the same as the 8200, but will have dual processors... the 8800 is another dual processor...is expected to "BLOW THE COMPETITION OUT OF THE WATER"...with 32 megabytes of main memory, one megabyte of cache memory, a console subsystem which is a PDP-11 with a J-11 chip, which will also have one megabyte of memory. The 8800 was designed from the start to be a multiprocessing machine...other announcements are expected in Februrary." For info on this newsletter: WARUG P.O. Box 1940 Vienna, Va 22180 (703) 280-4404
klr@hadron.UUCP (Kurt L. Reisler) (01/29/86)
I have just returned from the DEC product rollout for the 8200, 8300 and the 8800. The rumor in the Washington Area Rainbow User Group newsletter was accurate. The 8200 is supposed to be a 785 equivilant. Ultrix is (will) be avalable on the 8200 until they solve the legal problem that the multiprocessors on the 8300 and 8800 present for AT&T licensing (note-others have done this, what is DEC's problem?). The 8200 will be upgradable to an 8300 with the addition of a second processor. The new VAXBI architecture will support UNIBUS, but not MASSBUS devices. There is a KDB50 controller for RA devices. Benchmarks (specifics undefined) 8200, 1 mip; 8300, 1.9 mip; 8800, 10-12 mip. UNIBUS devices that curently reside on the UNIBUS off the VAXBI will eventually be migrated to the VAXBI. DEC offers 1 year warrenty on the new processor familly, with 4 hour DEC service (2 hour on 8800). Kurt Reisler DECUS UNISIG Chairman (In Training) ..!seismo!hadron!klr