twakeman@hpcea.CE.HP.COM (Teriann Wakeman) (03/22/89)
Anyone know why Apple is bothering with 16Meg 68030s????????? The result is essentually a MacII with a cheaper upgrade path. All the timing comparisons I have seen show Mac SE/30 / IIx / IIcx to be in the same speed league as the Mac II. With all this high sales profit $$$ alledgedly going into R&D, why are we seeing machines that basically behave like the now ageing MacII????? I have noticed major design for manufacturing improvements and component improvements that would make the new machines cheaper to build & upgrade, BUT They basically behave like MacIIs. For the longest time I have wondered why Apple bothered with the SE when they had the Mac+. They could have just tweeked the + a little, & got on to the business of creating a new Mac. Now we have fancy MacIIs. Apple is talking about multi media & real time animation. I believe you need more hores power then is currently available to be able to completely redraw the screen 20 to 25 times per second. Why in the world didn't the SE/30 & IIcx come out with 33Mhz 68030s?????? What about a second processor to handle the screen?? Third party manufacturers seem to be able to build 33Mhz 68030 accellerator boards that work with the newer Macs using Mac software. Why does Apple's R&D hesitate where companies with comparitively pico R&D budgets can do it????? Just wondering, TeriAnn PS My Mac+ does even more then it could when it was new because I have better software to run on it. Luckally, its performance dosn't degrade whenever Apple toots the horns & rolls out a brand new incremental tweek in new product clothing. Come the 33Mhz MacIIcx I will probably decide its time for a new computer.
mystone@sol.engin.umich.edu (Dean Yu) (03/24/89)
In article <430095@hpcea.CE.HP.COM> twakeman@hpcea.CE.HP.COM (Teriann Wakeman) writes: >Anyone know why Apple is bothering with 16Meg 68030s????????? >The result is essentually a MacII with a cheaper upgrade path. All the timing >comparisons I have seen show Mac SE/30 / IIx / IIcx to be in the same speed >league as the Mac II. > > [.....] > >Why in the world didn't the SE/30 & IIcx come out with 33Mhz 68030s?????? >What about a second processor to handle the screen?? Third party >manufacturers seem to be able to build 33Mhz 68030 accellerator boards that >work with the newer Macs using Mac software. Why does Apple's R&D hesitate >where companies with comparitively pico R&D budgets can do it????? > From what I understand, there are a few reasons why Apple hasn't gone with a faster clock rate. - Faster clock rates require faster RAM memory. And the price of of are ungodly. If people are complaining about Apple's prices now, think of how much they would charge for a machine with <100ns memory chips. - The circuit boards in the current Macs aren't capable of handling the increased speed. I'm not an hardware expert, so I don't know why this is so, and how the 3rd party accelerators work, but I'm led to believe that it would require a complete redesign of the logic board to support at faster processor. - Upgrades. If the second reason is true, then Apple wouldn't be able to offer upgrades (II -> IIx and SE -> SE/30). Apple didn't offer an upgrade for the Plus to the SE because they redesigned the logic board to get that 10 to 15% speed increase. I suppose that if they came out with a Mac IIex or whatever that ran at 33Mhz, they wouldn't give you an upgrade option either. _______________________________________________________________________________ Dean Yu | E-mail: mystone@{sol,caen}.engin.umich.edu University of Michigan | Real-mail: Dean Yu Computer Aided Engineering Network | 2413 Kelsey House ===================================| 600 E Madison "These are MY opinions." (My | Ann Arbor, MI 48109 employer doesn't want them. |=========================================== Actually, they don't really care | what I think. But President | This space intentionally left blank. Duderstadt does...) | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
mjohnson@Apple.COM (Mark B. Johnson) (03/24/89)
In article <430095@hpcea.CE.HP.COM> twakeman@hpcea.CE.HP.COM (Teriann Wakeman) writes: >Why in the world didn't the SE/30 & IIcx come out with 33Mhz 68030s?????? >What about a second processor to handle the screen?? Third party >manufacturers seem to be able to build 33Mhz 68030 accellerator boards that >work with the newer Macs using Mac software. Why does Apple's R&D hesitate >where companies with comparitively pico R&D budgets can do it????? > One reason is probably the same reason Apple doesn't come out with a faster 65816 in the IIGS and third-party companies can: none of these companies have to meet the demand Apple must for CPUs. If there is a "limited" supply of faster, more expensive chips, there would be a limited supply of faster, more expensive machines... Just my own guess however... Mark B. Johnson AppleLink: mjohnson Developer Technical Support domain: mjohnson@Apple.com Apple Computer, Inc. UUCP: {amdahl,decwrl,sun,unisoft}!apple!mjohnson "You gave your life to become the person you are right now. Was it worth it?" - Richard Bach, _One_
dr@cs.columbia.edu (David Robinowitz) (03/24/89)
In article <42340b22.a590@mag.engin.umich.edu>, mystone@sol.engin.umich.edu (Dean Yu) writes: > From what I understand, there are a few reasons why Apple hasn't gone with > a faster clock rate. > > - Faster clock rates require faster RAM memory. And the price of > of are ungodly. If people are complaining about Apple's prices > now, think of how much they would charge for a machine with <100ns > memory chips. From what I understand of caches, one could build a static-RAM cache between the MC68030 and the main memory (slow DRAMS) and get rid of some wait states/utilize a faster u-processor. Of course, this would require sophisticated hardware which would handle cache-misse/writes/replacement (if [set]associative). The speedup would be proportional to the cache-hit ratio which would vary depending on the application. I'm no motorola expert, but from what I've read, the MC68030 has a small data cache and a small instruction cache onboard. Enlarging this cache may be all Apple needs to do. As my CU professor said, [and I paraphrase badly] "Caches are one of the few elegant improvements one can make to a computer system. For a small increase in $$$$, one can get a significant speedup (more than just linear)." Certainly, the MM speed is still important (everything in the cache has to be read in from MM, and everything that gets written to MM eventually has to be actually written there) --- I don't know if 120ns DRAMS are fast enough to support a 33Mhz 030 without just adding more wait states for MM access. > Dean Yu | E-mail: mystone@{sol,caen}.engin.umich.edu > University of Michigan | Real-mail: Dean Yu > Computer Aided Engineering Network | 2413 Kelsey House > ===================================| 600 E Madison > "These are MY opinions." (My | Ann Arbor, MI 48109 > employer doesn't want them. |=========================================== > Actually, they don't really care | > what I think. But President | This space intentionally left blank. > Duderstadt does...) It seems Apple is not too concerned w/speedup. -Dave Real Men Don't Write Disclaimers. -- ---------------------------------------------------------------- David Robinowitz dr@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu CU SEAS CS MS, NYC (212) 601-1586
dlw@hpsmtc1.HP.COM (David L. Williams) (03/24/89)
Probably the reason that we only see 16mghz Mac IIx's 030SE's is because Apple is Stingy in the speed and performance dept. They don't use faster dma/scsi chips for disk access, they don't use graphics accelerators or anything other than a math coprocessor, they don't use a DSP for sound. I guess all that R&D money went to giving Apple R&D engineers 3 or 4 more video cards and monitors to hang on their 8 meg machines. Just think! now the R&D budget can be spent buying themselves the big 21" monitors. -David
gillies@p.cs.uiuc.edu (03/25/89)
Q: Why is apple bothering with 16Mhz 68030's?
A: Why did IBM use the 8088, when the faster 8086 was available, for
the PC? First, they saved $30/machine. I am bet Apple is probably
saving several hundred dollars per machine, when you consider the caches
needed to fully utilize a 33Mhz processor.
B: How many 33Mhz parts do you think Motorola can produce? I doubt they
can produce enough to satisfy Sun, Apple, etc, all at the same time.
Can you imagine how this would bid up the price of macintoshes, if
Apple could not get CPUs for its computers????
C. 33Mhz chips are very nearly state-of-the-art for microprocessor
silicon. Rarely can you satisfy a customer by giving him flakey
state-of-the-art equipment.
Don Gillies, Dept. of Computer Science, University of Illinois
1304 W. Springfield, Urbana, Ill 61801
ARPA: gillies@cs.uiuc.edu UUCP: {uunet,harvard}!uiucdcs!gilliesjmunkki@kampi.hut.fi (Juri Munkki) (03/26/89)
In <430095@hpcea.CE.HP.COM> twakeman@hpcea.CE.HP.COM (Teriann Wakeman) writes: >Anyone know why Apple is bothering with 16Meg 68030s????????? I _guess_ Apple is getting old and conservative. Even the normal Macs only run at about 6 Mhz because Apple didn't want to waste their money into video RAMs. The worst problem with the Mac II was that the video card has to be in a NuBUS slot. This means that the video memory has an access time of about 300 ns. You can't get real time video with a 10 Mhz NuBUS. The Mac IIx is a total cripple. The only reason to buy a IIx instead of a II is if you want a superdrive. The Mac IIcx is a winner. It's smaller than a Mac II, so I don't think it's too bad that it doesn't run at 25 or 33 Mhz. They would have had to fix the video problems, if they had increased the speed. They could have created a 33 Mhz SE/030, but it would have sounded silly to have the SE run faster than a II. They should have designed a video slot for the cx. That way you could have 100-120 ns RAM for one video monitor and still have other monitors on NuBUS. They could also have increased the clock rate, since you would have been able to see the increase with the new video slot... We'll probably see a super-expensive Mac IIxx within a year. I don't think a lot of people will be able to afford it. Maybe Apple should create a new family of computers. The marketing department probably wouldn't want that, but it would be the right choice in the long run. I don't want a Macintosh model designed to be a NeXT-killer. The Macintosh architecture simply wasn't designed to kill NeXT. _._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._._ | Juri Munkki jmunkki@hut.fi jmunkki@fingate.bitnet I Want Ne | | Helsinki University of Technology Computing Centre My Own XT | ^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^~^
ra_robert@gsbacd.uchicago.edu (03/27/89)
In article <20788@santra.UUCP>, jmunkki@kampi.hut.fi (Juri Munkki) writes... [...] >I don't want a Macintosh model designed to be a NeXT-killer. The Macintosh >architecture simply wasn't designed to kill NeXT. Ah, right, that's the official Next reason why Next will succeed the Mac. I talked with someone at Next about it: yeah, he said, the Mac architecture just can't compete with Next's. I disagree, but I guess we'll see. I reckon a lot of software's gonna break in the interim, but I reckon Apple's engineer's are going to revamp the architecture for the '90's. And then there's always the 88k Mac (which I guess you could claim is a separate machine). Apple's also going to be going (according to them) much further in the direction of graphic and other co-processors, etc., offloading a lot of work off the CPU (Finally! :->). By the way, I think it will be interesting to see how Next is doing a year from now. Between Apple's future stuff, Sun's "Campus", and Dec's new stuff, there's a lot of competition. A beta Next at Businessland? Sounds kinda of odd to me. Apple's Next-Killer may never get a chance to go up against its target. But...we'll see. Robert ------ ra_robert@gsbacd.uchicago.edu ------ generic disclaimer: all my opinions are mine
alexis@ccnysci.UUCP (Alexis Rosen) (03/28/89)
In article <430095@hpcea.CE.HP.COM> twakeman@hpcea.CE.HP.COM (Teriann Wakeman) writes: >Anyone know why Apple is bothering with 16Meg 68030s????????? >The result is essentually a MacII with a cheaper upgrade path. [etc] >With all this high sales profit $$$ alledgedly going into R&D, why are we >seeing machines that basically behave like the now ageing MacII????? [etc.] >Why in the world didn't the SE/30 & IIcx come out with 33Mhz 68030s?????? >What about a second processor to handle the screen?? Third party >manufacturers seem to be able to build 33Mhz 68030 accellerator boards that >work with the newer Macs using Mac software. Why does Apple's R&D hesitate >where companies with comparitively pico R&D budgets can do it????? Good question. There are two answers. The first can be found in a flame/article I posted about two-three weeks ago. To summarize, it said that while Apple's technical people are generally very good to great, Apple marketing (and thus Apple as a whole) is run by idiots. Rarely has a corporation coasted so long on its past achievements (except, hmm, IBM in the mid-80's). Would you believe that things like (for example) HyperCard updates and host adaptor cards have sat around for months because Apple Marketing didn't know what the hell to do with them? (Or maybe they didn't understand what they were. How do you explain MacAPPC to idiots?) Enough frothing about the mouth. The other answer only applies to the CPUs, but it does excuse Apple for the slow processor speeds (though not anything else). It turns out that Motorola is having a bitch of a time getting the '20 and '30 out in quantity at high speeds. It appears that they can't supply enough to Apple to meet the demand. Actually, I take it back. This doesn't excuse anything. When IBM couldn't get a million '386s at 25MHz, they just announced the machine and shipped what they could. They also introduced a range of machines which were basically identical except for clock speed. Why hasn't Apple done this? (Hint: look at answer #1...) This whole issue has worried me quite a bit lately. In 1986, just three short years ago, you could get a motorola '020 at 16 MHz that would blow away the fastest Intel processor money could buy (a '286 at 10 MHz?). There was simply no comparison. Now Motorola can barely keep up with Intel- yes, they're shipping a 33MHz '030, but in what quantity? And what will it be like in a year, with 40 MHz '486s? Will the '040 be able to keep up? Motorola says so, but they can't even get the 030 out in quantity! The point is not that I want Macs to be superior to IBMs in raw speed. I do. And they're not, thanks to lazyness on Apple's part. The point IS that the architecture we're bound to may, in the end, be a disaster for us. Just two short years ago, things looked very different. There is one bright spot. I heard recently that Apple is delaying the "Four- Square" machine past the original intro date. The reason, I hear, is that Motorola is suddenly giving them very encouraging news about high-speed parts in quantity. If this is true, things will suddenly be looking a lot better. So we may get a 33 MHz '030 in October, instead of a 25 MHz '030 in August. If so, that'll be the first smart move out of Apple in a long time... (BTW, watch for the announcement on the '040 later this week. I hear they say they'll have quantity 25MHz parts late this year, turning in about **10 MIPS**. We'll see...) Skeptical but hopeful, Alexis Rosen alexis@ccnysci.uucp P.S. I've said this before, but it bears repeating. I've trashed Apple more than once on this net, but I'm NOT talking about technical people. I know a number of people at Apple, and all the tech-types are top-notch. It's the sales&marketing types (none of whom I know) that I don't care for...
ra_robert@gsbacd.uchicago.edu (03/29/89)
In article <1455@ccnysci.UUCP>, alexis@ccnysci.UUCP (Alexis Rosen) writes... [....] >Good question. There are two answers. The first can be found in a flame/article >I posted about two-three weeks ago. To summarize, it said that while Apple's >technical people are generally very good to great, Apple marketing (and thus >Apple as a whole) is run by idiots. Rarely has a corporation coasted so long >on its past achievements (except, hmm, IBM in the mid-80's). Would you believe >that things like (for example) HyperCard updates and host adaptor cards >have sat around for months because Apple Marketing didn't know what the hell >to do with them? (Or maybe they didn't understand what they were. How do you >explain MacAPPC to idiots?) [...] >There is one bright spot. I heard recently that Apple is delaying the "Four- >Square" machine past the original intro date. The reason, I hear, is that >Motorola is suddenly giving them very encouraging news about high-speed >parts in quantity. If this is true, things will suddenly be looking a lot >better. So we may get a 33 MHz '030 in October, instead of a 25 MHz '030 in >August. I believe you'll be seeing more of the same: the market has changed and Apple is adapting, although I think it's taking a while. Between Next, Sun and Dec, Apple has to offer more bang for the buck, and they will [e.g. the delayed introduction fo the "Four-Square"]. I believe they may be putting an '030 in their Laptop, and the Laptop itself introduces some new screen technology. So I think Apple's "coasting" days are over. I hope so. Robert ------ ra_robert@gsbacd.uchicago.edu ------ generic disclaimer: all my opinions are mine
sbb@esquire.UUCP (Stephen B. Baumgarten) (03/29/89)
In article <153@cs.columbia.edu> dr@cs.columbia.edu (David Robinowitz) writes: >From what I understand of caches, one could build a static-RAM cache >between the MC68030 and the main memory (slow DRAMS) and get rid of >some wait states/utilize a faster u-processor. This is exactly what Compaq and other high-end PC clone makers are doing. Running a 25Mhz 386 Compaq is really a pleasure (or as much of a pleasure as running a PC can be) compared to a Mac II, even with a fast hard disk. Of course, this is comparing number-crunching on both machines; things like PageMaker are still agony even on a 386 Compaq compared to the Mac. >It seems Apple is not too concerned w/speedup. This has always been true. They'll be coming out with a faster 030 box with built-in Ethernet sometime soon, or so the rumor goes. Makes sense from a business point of view -- why give away 25 Mhz technology for the price of a 16 Mhz box? And before anyone gripes about what a stupid, short-sighted and selfish policy that is, give the folks at Compaq a call and ask how they can dare offer an underpowered 286 machine (or several such machines; the 286 is still very much their bread and butter) when 33 Mhz 386 technology is available. And how dare they charge so much more for their 386 models? Once again, with Macintoshes as with PCs, you get what you pay for. -- Steve Baumgarten | "New York... when civilization falls apart, Davis Polk & Wardwell | remember, we were way ahead of you." cmcl2!esquire!sbb | esquire!sbb@cmcl2.nyu.edu | - David Letterman
ngg@bridge2.3Com.Com (Norman Goodger) (03/29/89)
In article <430095@hpcea.CE.HP.COM> twakeman@hpcea.CE.HP.COM (Teriann Wakeman) writes: >Anyone know why Apple is bothering with 16Meg 68030s????????? >The result is essentually a MacII with a cheaper upgrade path. All the timing >comparisons I have seen show Mac SE/30 / IIx / IIcx to be in the same speed >league as the Mac II. >Why in the world didn't the SE/30 & IIcx come out with 33Mhz 68030s?????? >What about a second processor to handle the screen?? Third party >manufacturers seem to be able to build 33Mhz 68030 accellerator boards that >work with the newer Macs using Mac software. Why does Apple's R&D hesitate >where companies with comparitively pico R&D budgets can do it????? >Just wondering, TeriAnn One Reason I can think of is a design at 33mhz without a fair amount of caching which would in itself incease the cost somewhat, would require faster RAM, probably on the order of at least 80ns or faster, which are still low volume, and HIGH cost chips, so if you think that the II series is spendy now, you have not seen anything if you start plugging in 4-8 megs of high speed ram....The price of the system would soar... -- Norm Goodger SysOp - MacInfo BBS @415-795-8862 3Com Corp. Co-Sysop FreeSoft RT - GEnie. Enterprise Systems Division (I disclaim anything and everything)
dlw@hpsmtc1.HP.COM (David L. Williams) (03/30/89)
I think I agree with Alexis that Apple's R & D staff is top notch and that they have been infected with marketing bozos from hell. I keep reading articles talking about truly awesome technology sitting inside Apple R & D that NEVER sees the light of day because Apple Marketing does not understand what to do with it. Seems like too many bozos have been hired of late who do not CARE about the products their company makes--to them its just a job. Perhaps Apple R & D can succeed in spite of this. I think Apple took a major hit when they lost Steve Jobs, warts and all HE had the FIRE to occasionally take great ideas and turn them into real products you and I could actually purchase. Perhaps he'll triumph again with the NeXT stuff. I hope somebody does. I shudder to think of the fate of personal computing in the hands of MicroSoft [The O/S from hell] and the marketing arm of Apple. I might add that I got email from some R&D types at Apple regarding my earlier jab in that direction, they have a good sense of humor and made it clear that not everyone has a zillion monitors or maxed out IIx's sitting on their desks. David
daveh@cbmvax.UUCP (Dave Haynie) (03/31/89)
in article <1455@ccnysci.UUCP>, alexis@ccnysci.UUCP (Alexis Rosen) says: > Enough frothing about the mouth. The other answer only applies to the CPUs, > but it does excuse Apple for the slow processor speeds (though not anything > else). It turns out that Motorola is having a bitch of a time getting the > '20 and '30 out in quantity at high speeds. It appears that they can't > supply enough to Apple to meet the demand. I think there's a simple explanation. The Apple Marketroids wanted an '030 machine, because the "68030" is hot, and "68020" is luke warm. And they wanted such a machine last fall. So Apple took an existing Mac II, dropped an '030 in it, and <poof!>. The IIx and IIcx really aren't designed to be 68030 machines; they're already running main memory at about 1/2 the speed their 15.8MHz 68030 could actually use, a much faster processor in the same system might not be considered "worth it" to Apple. But IIx and IIcx solved the immediate need for a 68030 machine, and could let them come out with a real one, say at maybe 25MHz or 33MHz, in the future, including external cache or main memory that's at least reasonably matched to the speed of the processor. And they get to charge much more for such a machine, and/or lower the costs of the current line, even if the actualy cost of such a machine isn't all that much more. > Now Motorola can barely keep up with Intel- yes, they're shipping a 33MHz >'030, but in what quantity? And what will it be like in a year, with 40 MHz >'486s? Will the '040 be able to keep up? Motorola says so, but they can't >even get the 030 out in quantity! It doesn't look like anyone else is having supply problems with Motorola. The only problem I've run into is that 25MHz 68881s don't yield too well, but you can get all the 25MHz 68882s you like if you're willing to spend a little bit more (makes me wonder about how much trouble they've gone to making 25MHz 68881s yield better). Considering that a full speed '030 is considerably faster than a full speed '386, and that both Moto and Intel are claiming around 2x improvements for their respective new chips, I claim the gap, if there is one, is widening (Moto actually claimed at least 2x increase for the '040 integer unit, about 10x-20x increase in the floating point unit over an '030+'882 system). > The point is not that I want Macs to be superior to IBMs in raw speed. I do. > And they're not, thanks to lazyness on Apple's part. The point IS that the > architecture we're bound to may, in the end, be a disaster for us. Just two > short years ago, things looked very different. You might wonder if part of the problem isn't laziness on Apple's part. Look at IBM these days. They've felt the pressure of cloners like Compaq and HP, and they're actually starting to build respectable machines (respectable in their class; I personally don't like '386 systems). EVERY high end '386 machine these days has a decent sized external static cache, most support a high speed Weitek floating point unit as well as the Intel FPU. The reason for this improvement in the hardware is direct competition. No one makes Mac clones, so Apple doesn't have any primary competition like the cloners do, only secondary competition with other computer vendors, none of whom are selling the same thing Apple's selling. As long as Apple believes you'd rather have a Mac than a PClone, they don't have to keep up with the technology to the same degree that cloners will. Considering how bad the PClone world is with software these days, Apple may be able to take their time. Macs have never really been known as high speed systems, they've just been winning on all kinds of software and user issues. IBM used to think it was pretty much secure just by being IBM; these days they're main efforts are in high speed and new software. > (BTW, watch for the announcement on the '040 later this week. I hear they > say they'll have quantity 25MHz parts late this year, turning in about > **10 MIPS**. We'll see...) Last figure I was 12.5 MIPS, 2-3.5 MFLOPs. Tasty. > Alexis Rosen -- Dave Haynie "The 32 Bit Guy" Commodore-Amiga "The Crew That Never Rests" {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh PLINK: D-DAVE H BIX: hazy Amiga -- It's not just a job, it's an obsession