irf@kuling.UUCP (Bo Thide') (01/30/91)
More and more is heard about the new HP9000/700 workstation series, also known as "the Snakes" with model names "Cobra" and "Coral(?)". Here is what I have gathered from various publications (mainly "Unix World" and "unigram.x", a corporate gossip newsletter published in the UK): The "Snake" series is based on a sub-micron CMOS HP PA ( Precision Architecture RISC) processor run at a high clock speed (90 MHz has been mentioned). At least one of the models is a desktop machine, similar to the 9000/425. The "Snake" workstations come with 1MB of cache, and are "lightning fast". Initially the support is only for a single processor but multi processor support will be added at a later stage. In addition to HP-UX 8.0 and Domain OS it seems that OSF/1 will be available. The introduction of the "Snake" series was planned for late 1990 but it has been delayed/postponed until the Februaray-March, 1991, time frame. The entry model is said to be a 50+ MIPS machine running at 52 Specmarks at a list price of $10 000. Floating point performance is very good, numbers mentioned vary between 5 and 15 Linpack DP Mflops. The top(?) model is claimed to be a 70 MIPS machine. But no Specmarks or Linpack benchmarks are known. Press reports say that the "Snake" series will give HP an 18 to 24 month lead over the competition (DEC, IBM, Sun) and that it is a pain in the neck for Sun, losing contracts to HP even before the "Snake" has been officially announced. I would appreciate any details on the design and performance of the "Snake" boxes including expected date of announcement. Bo ^ Bo Thide'-------------------------------------------------------------- |I| Swedish Institute of Space Physics, S-755 91 Uppsala, Sweden |R| Phone: (+46) 18-303671. Telex: 76036 (IRFUPP S). Fax: (+46) 18-403100 /|F|\ INTERNET: bt@irfu.se UUCP: ...!uunet!sunic!irfu!bt ~~U~~ -----------------------------------------------------------------sm5dfw