rios@ibmcan.uucp (Bill Rios) (02/16/90)
I know this newsgroup isn't supposed to carry commercial advertisements but I figured the previous discussion on IBM's new RIOS machine showed enough interest that people would probably be interested in this. There's an official IBM announcement regarding the new machines in the following newsgroups: comp.newprod, biz.comp.hardware and biz.comp.software. Since comp.newprod is moderated, it may take a few days for it to come through there. Please direct any follow-up discussions to newsgroup comp.unix.aix
dyer@spdcc.COM (Steve Dyer) (02/16/90)
>From: rios@ibmcan.uucp (Bill Rios)
Er, is this a joke, or did they codename the machine after you? :-)
I went to IBM's new product announcement this afternoon.
This was the much-anticipated followon to the less-than-
successful RT/PC. Even accounting for the typical
marketing hype, it looks like IBM has done a lot right
this time. The price/performance of the entire family
is amazing--it will redefine the playing field.
The *low end* (19" mono, 8mb memory, 120mb disk) runs both
X11/Motif and NeXTStep, has 27.5 MIPS integer (SPEC) and 7.5MFLOPS
floating point (Linpack) at 20mhz, and will sell for $13K list.
This is approximately 2x faster on integer operations and 4-5x
faster on floating point than the DECStation 3100, and even
better than that against the Sun Sparcstation 1. There is a cheaper
diskless config, too. Fully loaded (300mb disk, 19" 8-plane color,
16mb memory) was $23K list. I don't have prices for the bigger machines.
High end machines with specialized 3d color graphics (24-bit)
were amazing. Real time shading and motion. Lots of 3rd
party visualization software which exploits this.
The low end machine is about the size of a PS/2 desktop, maybe
just a bit bigger. The non-desktop machines are about the size
of a BA123 uVax II cabinet, but are claimed to be quieter and
have less power consumption.
It will be available with both X11/Motif and NeXT's NeXTStep. Motif
was running on the machines they had to demo today.
--
Steve Dyer
dyer@ursa-major.spdcc.com aka {ima,harvard,rayssd,linus,m2c}!spdcc!dyer
dyer@arktouros.mit.edu, dyer@hstbme.mit.eduANKGC@CUNYVM (Anil Khullar) (02/16/90)
Steve forgot to mention the X terminals they introduced. They are called Xstation 120. The one I played around with for a while 19" color and 1280 X 1024 pixels. Unlike the old MegaPels, they took up the full screen. and had 8.5 Meg on board (512K+8meg addon). This to me was as exciting as their POWERServers. I will probably get to talk to my local rep tommorow about the Educational Prices. My friend (who works for a trading house) and uses DECstation flipped out when he saw a ticker news feed on a window and speed at which other applications were running. Needless to say this time IBM probably has done it right --- And jumped ahead of the field :-) Anil
mdapoz@hybrid.UUCP (Mark Dapoz) (02/17/90)
In article <1695@ursa-major.SPDCC.COM> dyer@ursa-major.spdcc.COM (Steve Dyer) writes: >>From: rios@ibmcan.uucp (Bill Rios) > >Er, is this a joke, or did they codename the machine after you? :-) No, that isn't a joke. The node is valid and is defined on the uucp maps and that is Bill's last name. I established the usenet connection for them and verified all information comming from there. As for nameing the machine after him, well, I don't think he's that powerful yet :-) -- Mark Dapoz (mdapoz@hybrid.UUCP) ...uunet!mnetor!hybrid!mdapoz I remind you that humans are only a tiny minority in this galaxy. -- Spock, "The Apple," stardate 3715.6.
luner@werewolf.cs.wisc.edu (David L. Luner) (02/19/90)
Dyer@ursa-major.spdcc.COM (Steve Dyer) writes: > >The *low end* ... has 27.5 MIPS integer (SPEC) and 7.5MFLOPS >floating point (Linpack) at 20mhz, and will sell for $13K list. "The POWERstation 320 is rated at 7.4 MFLOPS (sustained LINPAK DP, all FORTRAN) and 22 SPECMARKs." The announcement letters also give Dhrystone performance of about 48,000. Complete SPEC and other industry benchmarks will be provided by GA (general availability), 2Q90. >There is a cheaper diskless config, too. No diskless configuration has been announced. There was announcement of a statement of direction to do so. >The low end machine is about the size of a PS/2 desktop, maybe >just a bit bigger. The POWERstation 320 is about the size of an "old" AT/XT, and about an inch taller. It includes a stand for placing the system vertically on the floor. -- David Disclaimer: This is *not* an Official IBM Press Release. Please contact your local IBM Branch Office for complete information on IBM products.