cmcmanis%pepper@Sun.COM (Chuck McManis) (03/30/88)
I agree with Scott that the '030 is some of the best vapor to seep from
Atari in some time (at least they were showing ABAQ's when they started
talking about it). And I would typically dismiss it as a fantasy of some
press release writers at Atari central, with a couple of caveats.
One, building a 68030, 4 slot VME box with UNIX could be done in about
3 weeks (you OEM it from Motorola). Two, unless some massive floodgate
of improvements/fixes for GEM/TOS/GEMDOS etc spew forth we have to
assume that the people Atari is paying are doing *something*. And third,
the crack about it being $5000 is exactly half of what it would cost
to do it today so maybe Atari is thinking by December Mot will have
cut it's prices in half.
The fact of the matter is that *anyone* can build a BUB (Boring UNIX Box).
Mips, Sun, Motorola, and a couple of others would be glad to sell you the
boards to do so. If you OEM a board chances are the manufacturer has a
port of UNIX running on it. And if you can add bitmapped graphics, (of
which there are boards for PC Bus, S-100, MultiBus I/II, VME Bus, NuBus,
and even the GesPac Bus) you can port X11 in a couple of months tops.
Out of the box mass storage is also not a problem with SCSI peripherals,
even various network interfaces can be purchased with the driver software.
It's kind of like being on "name that UNIX system" where the contests
compete by yelling out "I can build that box with 3 boards!"
The bottom line is that lots of people do that and Atari doesn't do it
any better than any of them do it. What we need is someone who is willing
to build a workstation for *people* and not businesses. Apple has come
closest with this, Atari and Commodore have done good follow ons but the
User Interface on both machines needs some polish before my father-in-law
could use it reliably. Of course most computer companies get blinded by
the glitter in the fortune 500. Little do they realize that there are
more secretaries, admins, and paper pushers, at those companies than
engineers. And those people will buy 8008 based computers if they get
the job done for them. If we don't figure this out the Japanese will I
guaruntee it.
--Chuck McManis
uucp: {anywhere}!sun!cmcmanis BIX: cmcmanis ARPAnet: cmcmanis@sun.com
These opinions are my own and no one elses, but you knew that didn't you.