james@bigtex.cactus.org (James Van Artsdalen) (10/16/88)
In article <MAGILL.88Oct13193331@eniac.seas.upenn.edu.seas.upenn.edu>, magill@eniac.seas.upenn.edu.seas.upenn.edu (Operations Manager) writes: > The computer industry needs some new garage builders. Unfortunately, the price of entry is rather steap these days. Garage builders thrive where there is little well-funded competition and where there is little government regulation. Neither is the case these days. The problem of FCC RFI compliance is I think obvious. The problem of VLSI/ASIC needs is more severe. In order to enter the market at a lower price, a company usually needs to use higher integration to cut costs. But this can be enormously expensive. Owning your own chip foundry is out of the question - those foundries cost $200 million or so (the "stepper motors" that position the wafers within .5 microns at each step in the process cost $1 million *apiece*!). If you have someone else make the chip, you still have design costs. VLSI design software costs upwards of $200,000 and doesn't necessarily work very well anyway. The CAD systems themselves aren't cheap either. If you plan to build just another PC clone you can buy chipsets from Intel and C&T, but then none of those work quite right and you have to fix their bugs in your design and software. All of this is very time consuming and expensive. When competition forces you to be state-of-the-art, you just can't cut corners the way you could with the P.E.T. or Apple ][. -- James R. Van Artsdalen james@bigtex.cactus.org "Live Free or Die" Home: 512-346-2444 Work: 338-8789 9505 Arboretum Blvd Austin TX 78759