gft_robert@gsbacd.uchicago.edu (06/29/90)
------- A couple of Next rumours from MacWeek's "Mac the Knife" page: 1) 5 important Next people have left the company, according to MtK at least partly due to Job's management style. MtK sez that sales are slow and burnout factor is hight. Question: does anyone know who any of these people were, specifically their job positions? That is, have any (more) major people left? (head of marketing left some time ago) 2) The color board may not be available by Fall, and Next is concentrating on a 50 MhZ 68040 machine which will be in a Sun-like pizza box. It will have no OD, but a 2.8 MB floppy instead. Code name is "Warp 9". Remember, these are rumours. Your mileage may vary. Robert ============================================================================ = gft_robert@gsbacd.uchicago.edu * generic disclaimer: * "It's more fun to = = * all my opinions are * compute" = = * mine * -Kraftwerk = ============================================================================
bruce@atncpc.UUCP (Bruce Henderson) (06/29/90)
In article <1990Jun28.184153.27766@midway.uchicago.edu>, gft_robert@gsbacd.uchicago.edu writes: > ------- > > A couple of Next rumours from MacWeek's "Mac the Knife" page: > > 50 MhZ 68040 machine which will be in a Sun-like pizza box. It will have no > OD, but a 2.8 MB floppy instead. Code name is "Warp 9". > Come on people! Get a grip on yourselves! What is wrong with this picture... Not the part about NeXT and a new CPU.... That's not so far fetched.. But a 50Mhz '040? People, Motorola is having problems with the XC versions (the final test silicon, i think..) running at 25 MHz. It will take YEARS for them to be able to approach that speed. Although I'd love to have one here, next to my RISC Macintosh 8-) Bruce Henderson Ashton Tate NeXTeam User Interface KGB
edwardm@hpcuhc.HP.COM (Edward McClanahan) (07/04/90)
Bruce Henderson writes: > > A couple of Next rumours from MacWeek's "Mac the Knife" page: > > > 50 MhZ 68040 machine which will be in a Sun-like pizza box. It will have no > > OD, but a 2.8 MB floppy instead. Code name is "Warp 9". > > Come on people! Get a grip on yourselves! What is wrong with this picture... > Not the part about NeXT and a new CPU.... That's not so far fetched.. > But a 50Mhz '040? People, Motorola is having problems with the XC versions > (the final test silicon, i think..) running at 25 MHz. It will take YEARS > for them to be able to approach that speed. I agree that the 50MHz '040 won't be out for some time, but I question the term "YEARS" - that is, I'm assuming they fix their problems with the 25MHz version soon. If I'm not mistaken, it didn't take that long to go from 25 to 50 MHz on the '030. And to compare apples to oranges, Intel seemed to take little time going from 25 to 33 MHz on their 486. Note in both cases that the manufacturer had produced this speed up on the previous chip (making a similar speedup on their latest chip easier?). (I refer to Motorola's '030 and Intel's 386.) Still, the '040 (at 25MHz) appears to be VERY LATE... Question: I understand that the Nubus in the NeXT runs at 25MHz itself (a substantial speedup over the Mac II's 10MHz Nubus). Though the memory resides on the same card as the CPU, what should we expect in "overall" performance speedup when just the CPU is improved?
sanwalk@robohack.UUCP (A. Roy Sanwalka) (07/05/90)
In article <680032@hpcuhc.HP.COM> edwardm@hpcuhc.HP.COM (Edward McClanahan) writes: > Bruce Henderson writes: > > > A couple of Next rumours from MacWeek's "Mac the Knife" page: > > > > > 50 MHz 68040 machine which will be in a Sun-like pizza box. It will have no > > > OD, but a 2.8 MB floppy instead. Code name is "Warp 9". > > > > Come on people! Get a grip on yourselves! What is wrong with this picture... > > I agree that the 50MHz '040 won't be out for some time, but I question the > term "YEARS" - that is, I'm assuming they fix their problems with the 25MHz > version soon. > > If I'm not mistaken, it didn't take that long to go from 25 to 50 MHz on the > '030. And to compare apples to oranges, Intel seemed to take little time > going from 25 to 33 MHz on their 486. Note in both cases that the manufacturer > had produced this speed up on the previous chip (making a similar speedup on > their latest chip easier?). (I refer to Motorola's '030 and Intel's 386.) I think we need to review our dates a bit here. As I know more about Intel parts (and believe me, I'm not proud of it :-), I'll keep my comments on the i386 and i486 for now. The i386DX at 16 MHz was developed in 1985. The i386SX at 16 MHz was developed in 1986. The current high end i386DX runs at 33 MHz and the high end i386SX runs at 20 MHz (1990). Intel claims it will be at least second quarter 1991 before the new 40 MHz i386DX and 25 MHz i386SX are released. All these figures refer to development of QUANTITY parts, which are the only ones relevant to systems manufacturers. As well, simply judging by the difference between release dates for systems (a fairly good indicator in the Intel world, maybe not so good for Motorola), the original 16 MHz 68030 based Mac IIx outdated the current (correct me if I'm wrong here) 40 MHz 68030 based Mac IIfx by at least 3 years by my reckoning. I would say that MacWeek, or at least "Mac the Knife", needs a serious dose of reality. Neither NeXT nor any other systems manufacturer is likely to have any short term (ie. under 18 months) plan for release of a 50 MHz 68040 based system. One last note to dispell MacWeek's article as just hot air: If you stop to consider NeXT's current direction re: mass storage, and then consider that Canon introduced a 32 ms access time 512 MB optical drive two months ago, you will soon realize that by the time the 50 MHz '040 is ready NeXT will be unlikely to go with a dying technology like a 2.8 MB conventional (or optically guided) floppy drive. > Question: I understand that the Nubus in the NeXT runs at 25MHz itself (a > substantial speedup over the Mac II's 10MHz Nubus). Though the > memory resides on the same card as the CPU, what should we expect > in "overall" performance speedup when just the CPU is improved? This depends a lot on Motorola's implementation of the 50 MHz '040: if the stick to a straight clock upgrade (like Intel did with the i386DX/20 to i386DX/25), then expect a sublinear speedup after accounting for the new timing sync. overhead. If the instead decide to rework parts of the chip (like Intel claims it will with the i486/33 to i486/40 upgrade), then expect a linear or even superlinear (though not spectacularly so) performance improvement. So much for my $0.02... P.S. - I have nothing for or against MacWeek, other than a basic objection towards publications that put out "rumour-mill" columns like "Mac the Knife" or even Byte magazine's Dvorak's "Inside Track". Nonetheless, I still read both and have yet to cancel my subscriptions... -- | A. Roy Sanwalka a.k.a. sanwalk@robohack sanwalk@contact | | #include <std_disclaim.h> sanwalk@ecf.{toronto.edu, utoronto.ca} | | `Undergraduate Electrical Engineer and Guru-in-training!' | | "People who think they know it all really annoy those of us who do" |
smithw@byu.edu (William V. Smith) (07/06/90)
An old school chum who works for Motorola confirmed this afternoon that they did have trouble with the 25MHz 68040 (FP code). He said this is fixed and the chip should be shipping in mass quantities by mid Sept.to Oct. He also claims that NeXT is waiting at the front door to start pumping out '040 cubes by October, maybe a bit earlier. But that is very second hand stuff.
hannum@mahler.psu.edu (Charles Hannum) (07/06/90)
In article <1990Jun28.184153.27766@midway.uchicago.edu> gft_robert@gsbacd.uchicago.edu writes:
A couple of Next rumours from MacWeek's "Mac the Knife" page:
1) 5 important Next people have left the company, according to MtK at least
partly due to Job's management style. MtK sez that sales are slow and burnout
factor is hight. Question: does anyone know who any of these people were,
specifically their job positions? That is, have any (more) major people left?
(head of marketing left some time ago)
2) The color board may not be available by Fall, and Next is concentrating on a
50 MhZ 68040 machine which will be in a Sun-like pizza box. It will have no
OD, but a 2.8 MB floppy instead. Code name is "Warp 9".
It doesn't surprise me that they would print garbage like that in MacWeek.
1) The magazine is trash.
2) The computer is trash. (Well, it's not very stylish anyway. "Trash"
might be a little too strong [but not much].)
3) Apple and NeXT aren't exactly on good terms, and the users seem to be
getting involved in this too. I know many Mac users that absolutely
despise the NeXT.
4) I hate rumors. If you have real, verifiable facts, I'm definitely
interested, but I do NOT want to hear rumors.
--
Virtually,
Charles Martin Hannum "Those who say a thing cannot be done should
Please send mail to: under no circumstances stand in the way of
hannum@schubert.psu.edu he who is doing it." - a misquotemax@pnet51.orb.mn.org (Max Tardiveau) (07/07/90)
Speaking of rumors and of slow sales, I heard the following :
Apparently, sales of NeXT are not going well for Businessland, and
they are lowering their price. A friend of mine contacted
Businessland recently, and they were ready to give him a special price
because they were trying to fulfill their quota of *15 machines* for
the quarter. That's regioanl sales, I assume for the Upper Midwest.
The NeXT is a great machine, I love it. But as long as it's not being
sold seriously, it just ain't gonna make it.
Max
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Bankers do it with interest (penalty for early withdrawal).
UUCP: {amdahl!bungia, uunet!rosevax, crash}!orbit!pnet51!max
ARPA: crash!orbit!pnet51!max@nosc.mil
INET: max@pnet51.orb.mn.orggft_robert@gsbacd.uchicago.edu (07/08/90)
----- In article <1990Jul6.131220.2151@acc.stolaf.edu>, hannum@mahler.psu.edu (Charles Hannum) writes... > >In article <1990Jun28.184153.27766@midway.uchicago.edu> gft_robert@gsbacd.uchicago.edu writes: [various Next rumours] > > >It doesn't surprise me that they would print garbage like that in MacWeek. > > 1) The magazine is trash. No, actually it isn't. It's fairly objective, even going so far as to print glowing articles about Next. > > 2) The computer is trash. (Well, it's not very stylish anyway. "Trash" > might be a little too strong [but not much].) BS. What more is there to say? > > 3) Apple and NeXT aren't exactly on good terms, and the users seem to be > getting involved in this too. I know many Mac users that absolutely > despise the NeXT. Gee, with attitudes like yours, why would we? :-> > > 4) I hate rumors. If you have real, verifiable facts, I'm definitely > interested, but I do NOT want to hear rumors. >-- Hmm, seems to me that there have been a _lot_ of rumours listed in this group regarding the Next. I only see this venom when the rumours are negative. The title of the article included the word "rumours". If you don't want to read the article, don't. It's as simple as that. Hey, they're just rumours; take them for whatever they're worth. If you're not interested in rumours, don't read them. BTW, I received some confirmation thru e-mail that at least one important person did in fact leave Next. Can't remember right now who that was. (Of course the VP of Marketing, whom I know, did leave some time ago). Robert ============================================================================ = gft_robert@gsbacd.uchicago.edu * generic disclaimer: * "It's more fun to = = * all my opinions are * compute" = = * mine * -Kraftwerk = ============================================================================
mahesh@news.nd.edu (Mahesh Subramanya) (07/08/90)
From article <1990Jul6.131220.2151@acc.stolaf.edu>, by hannum@mahler.psu.edu (Charles Hannum): > It doesn't surprise me that they would print garbage like that in MacWeek. > > 1) The magazine is trash. > Wellll, sort of. Admittedly, the mags gotten jolly snooty lately, with a definite "Macintosh's are gods and embody the latest in hw/sw" attitude (HAH!), but there are the occassional good news titbits. > 2) The computer is trash. (Well, it's not very stylish anyway. "Trash" > might be a little too strong [but not much].) > Ay and verily. My Mac II has been reduced to the occassional MS Word doc, and office mail (we all use QuickMail internally. Ever tried it on Appletalk? Its also aliased to SnailMail) > 3) Apple and NeXT aren't exactly on good terms, and the users seem to be > getting involved in this too. I know many Mac users that absolutely > despise the NeXT. > What IS the deal with this? Are the Macnuts running scared? One of my colleagues came up to me with this horrible smirk on his face (after reading the MacRumor about an NeXT with integrated tiny screen) and said something to the tune of "Sounds familiar doesn't it? heh, heh, heh" I almost brained him (would have too if there was no one around). An attempt to *discuss* the NeXT (sw, hw, arch, ANYTHING)usually ends up with the Macdiots saying "we have more Apps". Sounds suspiciously like the DOSsers when the Mac came out... *************************MVS? EX-TER-MI-NATE*************************** Mahesh Subramanya INTERNET: mahesh@darwin.cc.nd.edu Senior Analyst Office of University Computing NeXT: mahesh@numenor.cc.nd.edu University of Notre Dame Voice: (219) 239-5600 x6421 Notre Dame, IN 46556 ************************************************************************
rlin@cs.ubc.ca (Robert Lin) (07/08/90)
I personally don't think MacWeek is trash. But I do think it is biased,
and so do a lot of Mac users who read it. Local Mac guru extraordinaire
Dave Murray told me how he read this recent article in MacWeek,
comparing Windows 3.0 with Mac.
"The article was obviously written by someone with a lot of Mac
bias. He would raise minor problems with Windows 3.0, and criticize
the hell out of it, de-emphisize Mac problems or say something like
'and of course, this is fixed as of System 7.0'...."
This cavalier attitude from its writers hasn't gone unnoticed. In the
most recent MacWeek I got, all letters (except one) criticized the
way Apple is handling marketing vis-a-vis the Windows 3.0 threat.
For the longest time, most Mac periodicals have a "let's kneel and
praise" attitude, and the Mac became a total sacred cow. Slowly, with
people like Dvorak ("The Devil's Advocate"), a tiny voice of criticism
was heard. A recent article about Apple's Obligopoly, for example,
is particularly interesting.
Let's not forget that we in the NeXT community inherit many of the old
problems with the Mac community. Face it, some of us get extremely
defensive about these beloved machines of ours. That includes people who
work for NeXT. Let me give you an example.
When I went down to NeXT Inc. for my developer's training during March,
there were still no announcement of the 68040. Rumour was flying wild
about whether the next NeXT would be RISC or CISC. I was determined to
find out, so I asked people. They were all very tight lipped. SO I decided
to try another approach; I started a RISC vs. CISC debate.
To my surprise, I found a totally defensive attitude toward CISC. This I
might have expected from a group of grizzled PC DOS marketing staff,
but certainly not from a progressive company like NeXT, where the
engineers get hired for their intelligence, and not their ability to
pay lip service to established policies.
I had at least expected to hear a balance treatsie on the pros and cons
of RISC versus CISC. Instead, I heard things like, "RISC is a none-issue.
It's a fad. It's unproven technology." And not just from one source,
but from many... the people who are in a position to know abut the
upcoming 68040 chip.
I thought, this is a joke! I respect their decision to use the 68040,
but what I heard was defensiveness that bordered on lies. At that time,
I caught on to the fact that they must be using the 68040, and that it
was not a matter up to debate anymore, but a decided fact, and handed
down from Above as the Gospel Right Way To Do Things.
All this is chronicled in lesser detail in Tao #1, by the way.
To be fair, the people I talked to were the most zealous of the NeXT
workers, and they tend to be the ones we meet at the Developer's Camp,
to impress us with the energy and enthusiasm of the company -- which
is impressive and substantial. That energy galvanizes people and makes
the world move. What I saw was perhaps the dark side of enthusiasm,
called zeal.
--> ABOUT THE MAC WEEK RUMOURS
This is my guess only. I think the people at NeXT is under a lot of
pressure from Steve and from general competition. They realize this
is a make or break year. They are working very hard to make their
upcoming announcement a super WOW.
The pressure has caused some less sturdy fellows to drop off the side.
Steve Jobs becomes the most abrasive (and paradoxically the most
effective at getting people to get things done) when the pressure is
high; this has been demonstrated over and over again in the past.
Head hunters know NeXT hires only the very best. So they actively
raid the company as a resource for top notch talents. So with a
combined high pressure from Steve, and big bucks offers from competitors,
some have decided to leave. Is that so surprising?
I think "five top people" is definitely an exaggeration. The truth is
probably something like "two top people, two low level guys", and maybe
an accidental casaulty of circumstance somewhere else.
Given the tension in the industry, it only serves NeXT's purpose to
obfuscate the enemy with false rumours. What better red herring than
to throw out a story about "Warp 9", the Wonder SparcStation SLC turbo
clone?
Those guys at NeXT are smart, they know what they are doing. I am
guessing they will stick to the basics, and in general that means to
accentuate the positive and fix the negative. For NeXT, it means
- System 2.0, with high performance file system and task scheduler
algorithm thoroughly revised. You'd be surprised how much performance
is lost to poorly optimized schedulers.
- New Canon 32 ms, 512 M floptical to fix persistent complaints.
- The 68040, of course, at 25 Mhz and maybe 33 model, depending on
Motorola's production capability.
- Low prices. Major price cuts can be achieved while still preserving
profit margin because one very expensive cost, our "free" NeXT
software, has been amortized and paid for by us pioneers.
- A show of strength from major software vendors, with applications
available for immediate delivery, to once and for all silence
critics of the "no apps" variety.
I personally also believe Color WILL be available. As far as March,
I was told they had working color boards. It's been quite a while
since. Rumours that color won't be available may be intentionally
spread to lull competitors into complacency.
The workstation market is a deadly business. From what I've seen, NeXT
is better organized and much more nimble than their competitors like
IBM, SUN, HP, and Apollo. They've got small and fast killer-engineer
teams who are free from all the bureacratic red tape that tie down
engineers from the other workstation vendors.
NeXT is also cash rich enough (remember Canon's $100 million investment?)
to endure any sort of cut throat price war that SUN may wage. Because
NeXT is smaller, it would be instead to their interest to emphasis
value as opposed to low price tag. As I conjecture along these lines, I
am guessing NeXT will bundle yet another significant piece of software,
along the lines of a "Desktop Document Retrieval System" like Paper-
Sight, the way they bundled FrameMaker (as demo software).
Anyways, sorry about the verbosity. That's my two cents.bruce@atncpc.UUCP (Bruce Henderson) (07/09/90)
In article <1990Jul7.230927.23012@midway.uchicago.edu>, gft_robert@gsbacd.uchicago.edu writes: > > BTW, I received some confirmation thru e-mail that at least one important > person did in fact leave Next. Can't remember right now who that was. (Of > course the VP of Marketing, whom I know, did leave some time ago). > > > Robert > This is pretty stale though, Dan'L (some weird spelling) Lewin left to go be something importiant at GO corp. It seems Steve J. told him to produce results or go screw up somebody else's company (not a quote at all). But this was at least 4 months ago. The Mac The Knife column should be viewed as fictional entertainment, and nothing more. Some of the stuff they print in there are so ludicris (SP?) that it seems that the person authoring the column has no understanding of the way things (physically) work. Included in this list of stupidity are references to a dedicated Mac Server machine due (soon?) with an '040, 64 Meg of Ram, a 300 Watt power supply and room for 4 drives in the case. (May 22nd Mac Week) I guess this guy never figured out that the Mac OS is hardwired to an upper limit of 14 Meg. That's right! unless you are running A/UX, that's all the machine will address! The June 5th issue includes refrence to a 25Mhz '020 mac with 2 MB of ram soldered onto the motherboard. 1) Apple gets '030 from Moto cheaper than they get '020 's 2) Apple has been using SIMMS for a long time, with good results. Why solder RAM to the board? (And maybe Ashton Tate has the Machine they are talking about and Maybe I am looking under the lid right now.... 8-) All I'm saying is that the guy who writes up Mac The Knife must be a bufoon for believing all the garbage his "Informants" give him. The guy who used to be Mac The Knife was a dude named Jonathan Perot. I knew this guy personally, and he was really sharp. But he got pissed an left Mac Week. This guy (new one) must be a complete idiot! Bruce Henderson Ashton Tate NeXTeam User Interface KGB
gft_robert@gsbacd.uchicago.edu (07/10/90)
---------- In article <279@atncpc.UUCP>, bruce@atncpc.UUCP (Bruce Henderson) writes... >In article <1990Jul7.230927.23012@midway.uchicago.edu>, gft_robert@gsbacd.uchicago.edu writes: >> [...] >This is pretty stale though, Dan'L (some weird spelling) Lewin left to go >be something importiant at GO corp. It seems Steve J. told him to produce >results or go screw up somebody else's company (not a quote at all). If it's not a quote, why do you say that Steve said it? It seems unlikely that Dan'l (you got the spelling almost right) would have been hired as VP of marketing by GO if he had been "screwing up the company". Hm, now that Steve's directly in charge of marketing, sales have gone WAY up, right? :-> [...] >The Mac The Knife column should be viewed as fictional entertainment, and >nothing more. Some of the stuff they print in there are so ludicris (SP?) >that it seems that the person authoring the column has no understanding >of the way things (physically) work. > >Included in this list of stupidity are references to a dedicated Mac Server >machine due (soon?) with an '040, 64 Meg of Ram, a 300 Watt power supply >and room for 4 drives in the case. (May 22nd Mac Week) I guess this guy >never figured out that the Mac OS is hardwired to an upper limit of >14 Meg. That's right! unless you are running A/UX, that's all the machine >will address! It is true that much of the stuff in 'Mac the Knife' is inaccurate. Some of it is indeed true though. They are, after all, just rumours. And some of the stuff which sounds wierd might be prototypes that are killed off early in the process. BTW, you might want to get a better understanding of the way the Mac works yourself: as far as I know, with system 7.0 in 32-bit mode, you will be able to address up to 1 gigabyte of virtual memory on any Mac with '32 bit clean' ROM's (for now that's the IIci and IIfx, I believe). Robert ============================================================================ = gft_robert@gsbacd.uchicago.edu * generic disclaimer: * "It's more fun to = = * all my opinions are * compute" = = * mine * -Kraftwerk = ============================================================================
edwardm@hpcuhc.HP.COM (Edward McClanahan) (07/11/90)
Max Tardiveau writes: > Speaking of rumors and of slow sales, I heard the following : > Apparently, sales of NeXT are not going well for Businessland, and > they are lowering their price. A friend of mine contacted > Businessland recently, and they were ready to give him a special price > because they were trying to fulfill their quota of *15 machines* for > the quarter. That's regioanl sales, I assume for the Upper Midwest. A recent poster reported an announcement by Businessland of a lowering of their price on "the basic cube" from $10K to $8K. I would advise your friend to not let the salesperson pressure him/her into a purchase to "fill the salesperson's quota"... I wouldn't expect this new price to ever go higher. The drop in price was in direct response to very competitive price/performance announcements in the workstation AND pc markets (most notably the SparcStation SLC and the latest high performance 386/486 PCs w/ Windows 3.0 etc...).
hannum@schubert.psu.edu (Charles Hannum) (07/12/90)
In article <1990Jul5.143931.28749@robohack.UUCP> sanwalk@robohack.UUCP (A. Roy Sanwalka) writes: In article <680032@hpcuhc.HP.COM> edwardm@hpcuhc.HP.COM (Edward McClanahan) writes: P.S. - I have nothing for or against MacWeek, other than a basic objection towards publications that put out "rumour-mill" columns like "Mac the Knife" or even Byte magazine's Dvorak's "Inside Track". Nonetheless, I still read both and have yet to cancel my subscriptions... Just a minor correction: John C. Dvorak's "Inside Track" is printed in PC Magazine, NOT Byte. Byte is actually one of the more respectable magazines on the market (though I'm disappointed at the elimination of "Ciarcia's Circuit Cellar" ...) -- Virtually, Charles Martin Hannum "Those who say a thing cannot be done should Please send mail to: under no circumstances stand in the way of hannum@schubert.psu.edu he who is doing it." - a misquote
richf@adiron.UUCP (Rick Fanta) (07/12/90)
Speaking of the next Next, here's a thought that I've had. Please shoot it down for me. I've heard rumors on this newsgroup that the new Moto DSP chip (MC96001?) was not avail- able in time to be incorporated into the new machine. To do rendering in real-time, though, the muscle of this chip or a "RISC on steroids" like the i860 seems necessary (or so I'm told by people that actually know something ;-). Why not offer the new chip on an add-in card (separate card or special card that clips into the motherboard)? Better yet, why not use the parallel processing capabilities of the chip (and Mach) and allow multiple (floating point) DSPs to be used in parallel??? What are the problems with this??? All comments appreciated. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rick Fanta PAR Technologies, New Hartford, NY
daugher@cs.tamu.edu (Dr. Walter C. Daugherity) (07/13/90)
In article <441@adiron.UUCP> richf@adiron.UUCP (Rick Fanta) writes: >Speaking of the next Next, here's a thought that I've had. Please shoot it down for me. >I've heard rumors on this newsgroup that the new Moto DSP chip (MC96001?) was not avail- >able in time to be incorporated into the new machine. To do rendering in real-time, though, >the muscle of this chip or a "RISC on steroids" like the i860 seems necessary (or so I'm >told by people that actually know something ;-). >Why not offer the new chip on an add-in card (separate card or special card that clips >into the motherboard)? Better yet, why not use the parallel processing capabilities of >the chip (and Mach) and allow multiple (floating point) DSPs to be used in parallel??? >What are the problems with this??? >All comments appreciated. >Rick Fanta PAR Technologies, New Hartford, NY The 96xxx DSP is indeed impressive, but it is also expensive for now. I don't know about availability. However, you are quite correct about the need for extraordinary muscle to do the promised extraordinary graphics, so you can expect a substantial CPU and multiple (parallel) FPU's on the color graphics board. Whether the graphics CPU will be running under Mach remains to be seen. It will have to be on another board--there's no room on the main board and in my opinion daughter boards would have clearance and cooling problems. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Walter C. Daugherity Internet, NeXTmail: daugher@cs.tamu.edu Knowledge Systems Research Center uucp: uunet!cs.tamu.edu!daugher Texas A & M University BITNET: DAUGHER@TAMVENUS College Station, TX 77843-3112 CSNET: daugher%cs.tamu.edu@RELAY.CS.NET ---Not an official document of Texas A&M---