lane@SUMEX-AIM.STANFORD.EDU (Christopher Lane) (11/20/90)
If the 'slab' gets delayed by Motorola 68040 chip supplies, is it feasible for NeXT to ship the monochrome NeXTstations with 68030's installed, along with a voucher for a CPU chip upgrade to '040 when available? The clock speed on the current cube and new slabs is the same, as are the SIMMs. Are the '040 and '030 pin compatible? What else prevents you from replacing one with another? Perhaps some of the hardware knowledgeable among the comp.sys.next community could explain if this is possible. It seems to me that a lot of people (like me) would appreciate having a 5 MIP '030 NeXTstation running 2.0 in hand with an upgrade process in the spring rather than waiting out a long delay. Any ideas? - Christopher PS: Of course, if everybody's NeXTstations get delivered by the end of this month as originally planned, never mind! :-) -------
scott@mcs-server.gac.edu (Scott Hess) (11/20/90)
In article <MailManager.659054095.7886.lane@ssrg-next-1.stanford.edu> lane@SUMEX-AIM.STANFORD.EDU (Christopher Lane) writes: >If the 'slab' gets delayed by Motorola 68040 chip supplies, is it feasible for >NeXT to ship the monochrome NeXTstations with 68030's installed, along with a >voucher for a CPU chip upgrade to '040 when available? The clock speed on the >current cube and new slabs is the same, as are the SIMMs. Are the '040 and >'030 pin compatible? What else prevents you from replacing one with another? I very much doubt it. For one thing _I_ certainly don't want to be messing around with a couple hundred dollars worth of chips . . . Also, the 040 has a built-in MMU and FPU, which th 030 doesn't, do presumably pinouts change, also. Lastly, the chips are mounted directly on the motherboard - not socketed - so only a small percentage of people would even have the know-how to do the operation, much less the guts to charge on ahead. Then again, it's looking more optimistic WRT getting those machines shipped yet this month. I suspect at least some will be . . . -- scott hess scott@gac.edu Independent NeXT Developer (Stuart) GAC Undergrad (Horrid. Simply Horrid. I mean the work!) <I still speak for nobody>
eps@toaster.SFSU.EDU (Eric P. Scott) (11/20/90)
In article <MailManager.659054095.7886.lane@ssrg-next-1.stanford.edu> lane@SUMEX-AIM.STANFORD.EDU (Christopher Lane) writes: >If the 'slab' gets delayed by Motorola 68040 chip supplies, is it feasible for >NeXT to ship the monochrome NeXTstations with 68030's installed, along with a >voucher for a CPU chip upgrade to '040 when available? The clock speed on the >current cube and new slabs is the same, as are the SIMMs. Are the '040 and >'030 pin compatible? What else prevents you from replacing one with another? Life's kinda rough without floating point... (think about it) -=EPS=-