art@ACC.ARPA (01/30/86)
This will probably be one of a flurry of similar messages. DEC unveiled three new members of the VAX family during a press announcment at something like 150 locations worldwide. The machines cover midrange and a new top end machine. The machines are the 8200, 8300 and 8800. All three incorporate the new VAXBI Bus (Backplane Interconnect) with BI/UNIBUS adapters. The 8200 is rated equal to the 780. The 8300 has two CPU cards and is currently rated at 1.6 times a 780. The 8800 has two new ECL based CPUs tied to a high speed memory bus, which in turn connects to up to four VAXBIs. The 8800 is currenly rated at 12 times a 780. The two CPUs in the 8300 and 8800 are currently used by VMS in a nonsymetric system, with the second CPU only performing process execution. Future releases of VMS will move toward a fully symetric multiprocessor system of two (or more) CPUs. DEC claims that will symetric multiprocessing, the 8200 will approach 2 times a 780 and the 8800 14 times a 780. The VAXBI will support the UNIBUS adapter, an MSCP disk controller for RA series disks, CI bus adapter and soon an Ethernet controller. The 8200 comes in a single bay, low-boy cabinet (about the size of the newest uVAX-II package). The 8800 comes in the same sized package as a 780. Complete packages ranged from about $140K for an 8200 to about $700K for an 8800. Although not talked about while I was there, the 8200 glossy implied that ULTRIX was available for at least the 8200. The 8200 and 8300 correspond to project "Scorpio" and the 8800 to project "Nautilus". <Art@ACC.ARPA> ------