culberts@hpccc.UUCP (09/30/87)
National, with their 32000 Designer Kit, has made it easy and inexpensive for experimenters to get 6 MHz 32000 chip sets (CPU, MMU, FPU, ICU and TCU). Faster parts, and other members of the 32000 family, seem hard to get in small quantities. For example, I would like a 10 MHz 32016 set and a 10 MHz NS32203 DMA controller. All the distributors I called quoted a six week delivery and a minimum quantity of 8 per part. Anyone solved this problem? Did anyone buy eight and get stuck with leftovers they would sell me? Hint to National: I recently saw a Motorola experimenters kit with a fast (I think it was either 12 MHz or 16 MHz) 68020, 68881 floating point unit, and some memory manager. Bruce Culbertson (408)447-0212
agnew@trwrc.UUCP (10/02/87)
In article <5980002@hpccc.HP.COM> culberts@hpccc.HP.COM (Bruce Culbertson) writes: >National, with their 32000 Designer Kit, has made it easy and inexpensive >for experimenters to get 6 MHz 32000 chip sets (CPU, MMU, FPU, ICU and TCU). >Faster parts, and other members of the 32000 family, seem hard to get in >small quantities. For example, I would like a 10 MHz 32016 set and a >10 MHz NS32203 DMA controller. All the distributors I called quoted >a six week delivery and a minimum quantity of 8 per part. > I've had the same bad experience. Many distributors are dropping national because of their lack of popularity, especially in light of the 80386. I didn't even think the 32203 was real yet! Despite the fact that National designed the best processor line, it is doing very poorly. National has not helped this situation much. The last several designers kits that I bought for building the PD32 had bad parts in them ( 32201's won't run at 6 Mhz. etc.). The fact that the NS32032 and NS32082 won't run Unix until mask revision "M" or so doesn't help much! I wish that I didn't have thousands of $ of my own money and 6 years of my life invested in NS stuff so that I could switch to 80386's. It may not be the best processor, but at least one can find affordable Unix software and support for it. Motorola and Intel seem to encourage we engineers to experiment, while National seems to treat us like second class citizens who don't deserve to use state of the art parts. (You out there National ??) Anyone know where I can buy a NS32C032-15 and NS32C201-15 so that I might be able to get another few months out of my DSI-32?
pekka-r@obelix.liu.se (Pekka Akselin [The Midnight Hacker]) (10/06/87)
Hello!
The ns32xxx family is just wonderful!
But why are they so expensive??????
Why doesn't let a japanese manufacturer make these chips, they can
lower the cost - just look at the memory market, but not sell them.
They make them for nsc only and they will sell them! Good idea??? eh?
Impossible??
This will give us (the world) a wonderful processor family cheaply
and nsc will make more money!
/pekka
[The Mad Midnight Hacker Strikes Again]
______________________________________________________________________________
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Pekka Akselin, Univ Linkoping, Sweden (The Land Of The Mad Midnight Hacker 8-)chongo@amdahl.amdahl.com (Landon Curt Noll) (10/16/87)
In article <229@trwrc.UUCP> agnew@trwrc.UUCP (R.A. Agnew) writes: >I've had the same bad experience. Many distributors are dropping >national because of their lack of popularity, especially in light >of the 80386. I didn't even think the 32203 was real yet! Despite >the fact that National designed the best processor line, it is doing >very poorly. National has not helped this situation much. The last >several designers kits that I bought for building the PD32 had >bad parts in them ( 32201's won't run at 6 Mhz. etc.). The fact >that the NS32032 and NS32082 won't run Unix until mask revision "M" >or so doesn't help much! I wish that I didn't have thousands of $ of my >own money and 6 years of my life invested in NS stuff so that I could >switch to 80386's. It may not be the best processor, but at least one >can find affordable Unix software and support for it. Motorola and Intel >seem to encourage we engineers to experiment, while National seems to >treat us like second class citizens who don't deserve to use state of the >art parts. (You out there National ??) It is possible for someone to forward this person's letter to some higher-ups at National? Comments like these can be helpful if certain peole are made aware of them and make some effort to try and correct the situation. Now for the STD disclaimer: No, I'm not National bashing, I just happened to agree with everything this person said. I too have sunk many kilobucks into hardware with 32000 parts. I ran into similar problems, and i'd love to see them fixed. chongo <> ./\oo/\. -- [views above shouldn't be viewed as Amdahl views, or as views from Amdahl, or as Amdahl views views, or as views by Mr. Amdahl, or as views from his house]
darylm@Zaephod.gwd.tek.com (Daryl V. McDaniel) (10/17/87)
>In article <229@trwrc.UUCP> agnew@trwrc.UUCP (R.A. Agnew) writes: > >I've had the same bad experience. Many distributors are dropping > >national because of their lack of popularity, especially in light > >of the 80386. ... > >... The fact > >that the NS32032 and NS32082 won't run Unix until mask revision "M" > >or so doesn't help much! I wish that I didn't have thousands of $ of my > >own money and 6 years of my life invested in NS stuff so that I could > >switch to 80386's. ... > >... Motorola and Intel > >seem to encourage we engineers to experiment, while National seems to > >treat us like second class citizens who don't deserve to use state of the > >art parts. (You out there National ??) > >It is possible for someone to forward this person's letter to some higher-ups >at National? Comments like these can be helpful if certain peole are made >aware of them and make some effort to try and correct the situation. > >chongo <> ./\oo/\. While it is true that the National product has gotten somewhat of a bad rep' many of your problems may be the fault of your distributor. My local experience with NSC and the 32000 family has been quite good. I have been involved with the 32000 since 1981 or so when I was with another company. Since then I have built several machines for customers and myself. Early in the life of the product there were many problems. The ones which caused the most problem were programmers using illegal instructions or addressing modes, misinterpretation of MMU operation, and temperature sensitivity of the chips. In all cases the local NSC representative, (manufacturers rep), and NSC people from Santa Clara were most helpful. Whenever I received a part which was defective it was replaced. I have been running UNIX on a 32032 based system for several years now. The CPU is rev H and the MMU is revL. I wouldn't recommend using anything prior to: 32016 Rev. S Process improvements enhance long-term reliability 32082 Rev. N Process improvements, tighter spec. conformance 32C201 Rev. C Lowers system noise dramatically 32332 Rev. C QUICK 32032 Rev. H Improved temperature stability. 32202 Rev. F You may say that sure, a large company will get good support while an individual gets scorned. Well, except for the last three years (When I have done the least with NSC) I worked for a company with only 3 people. Standard Disclaimer: I don't work for NSC and receive no benefit from my comments. My employer doesn't know I am doing this and I don't represent them. This is an expression of my feelings based upon prior experience. -_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_ Daryl V. McDaniel (w) tektronix!hammer!darylm Graphics Workstation Division Tektronix, Inc., POB 1000, MS 61-215 Wilsonville, OR. 97070 (503) 685-2298
ken@cs.rochester.edu (Ken Yap) (10/18/87)
I heard the talks on the 32532 at ICCD, Rye Brook. So when will this wonderful chip be on the shelf? I want to see more of NSC chips, I like the architecture. Ken
grenley@nsc.nsc.com (George Grenley) (10/21/87)
this is in reply to several articles on 32K parts. In case you didn't read the header, I work for NSC. In article <3333@sol.ARPA> ken@cs.rochester.edu (Ken Yap) writes: >I heard the talks on the 32532 at ICCD, Rye Brook. So when will this >wonderful chip be on the shelf? I want to see more of NSC chips, I >like the architecture. I believe we are now accepting orders for delivery around Decemeber. The part is in production, and runs Unix. Yield is 20 to 25 mhz mostly. You might not like the intro price, though - I think it is just this side of a thou. As far as the issue of support for "garage shops" goes, that's the unfortunate reality of this business. Sales engineers and FAEs work on commish, after all. But if you have specific technical questions, post 'em. There's a lot of us at NSC who read this, and many of us can write, too.
agnew@trwrc.UUCP (R.A. Agnew) (10/24/87)
In article <4712@nsc.nsc.com> grenley@nsc.UUCP (George Grenley) writes: > >You might not like the intro price, though - I think it is just this >side of a thou. > You must be mistaken!! I can buy a 20 Mhz. 386 motherboard for that price!!