[net.decus] DEC product announcement article reprint

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