paul@taniwha.UUCP (Paul Campbell) (03/26/89)
OK ... the 68040 is said to be being introduced on March 28th (see MacWeek etc). When will NeXT announce their '040 version? Looking at the NeXT's system design in Byte a while ago it's pretty obvious that that's what they designed it for, they had to hack around a bit to get the '030 in .... any bets? Paul -- Paul Campbell, Taniwha Systems Design, Oakland CA ..!mtxinu!taniwha!paul "'Give me your tired, your poor - I'll piss on them' that`s what the Statue of Bigotry sais. 'Let`s club them to death, get it over with and just dump them on the Boulevard'" - Lou Reed, "New York"
phd_ivo@gsbacd.uchicago.edu (03/26/89)
> When will NeXT announce their '040 version? Looking >at the NeXT's system design in Byte a while ago it's pretty obvious >that that's what they designed it for, Not being a hardware engineer, how obvious is it? If so, is that a good argument to wait buying NeXt? Is anything known about the performance leap of the 68040, and---what's more important to me---the performance leap of its accompanying floating point processor? Thanks for any info ... /ivo
paul@taniwha.UUCP (Paul Campbell) (03/27/89)
In article <2460@tank.uchicago.edu> phd_ivo@gsbacd.uchicago.edu writes: > >> When will NeXT announce their '040 version? Looking >>at the NeXT's system design in Byte a while ago it's pretty obvious >>that that's what they designed it for, > >Not being a hardware engineer, how obvious is it? If so, is that a >good argument to wait buying NeXt? Is anything known about the performance >leap of the 68040, and---what's more important to me---the performance >leap of its accompanying floating point processor? I don't know, to me it seems very obvious .... but I wouldn't wait my guess is that '040s will not be available in quantity at least 'till the end of the year (if you read the press you will see that the 88k is only now becoming available in quantity even though it was announced a long time ago). As far as performance of the '040 etc I would wait untill it is announced (then read comp.arch for the afterward arguments .... :-) Paul -- Paul Campbell, Taniwha Systems Design, Oakland CA ..!mtxinu!taniwha!paul "'Give me your tired, your poor - I'll piss on them' that`s what the Statue of Bigotry sais. 'Let`s club them to death, get it over with and just dump them on the Boulevard'" - Lou Reed, "New York"
BruceH@cup.portal.com (Bruce Robert Henderson) (03/28/89)
I think it will be a while until you see ANY machines with an '040 in them. The fact is, they will be in very limited supply until about 6 months from now when Motorola will have finalized the die for the thing and drop the XC off of the front. I think the shortest time until you see an '040 box will be 8 to 15 months [based on how long it was until 88k machines were being turned out. It's strictly a matter of Motorola not being able to crank out thousands of chips until they have it's design finalized. BruceH@Portal.com
mdeale@algol.acs.calpoly.edu (Myron Deale) (03/28/89)
Heck, I for one would like to see a migration to RISC. An 88K has acceptable performance :-) Myron #mdeale@polyslo.calpoly.edu #"...but cleanliness is next to RISCyness." -- bcase #arggh
daveh@cbmvax.UUCP (Dave Haynie) (04/05/89)
in article <9876@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU>, mdeale@algol.acs.calpoly.edu (Myron Deale) says: > Heck, I for one would like to see a migration to RISC. An 88K has > acceptable performance :-) Moto's been claiming that the '040 will edge out the current 88100+2*88200 in all-around performance. Of course, the current 88ks only run at 20MHz or so.... > Myron -- Dave Haynie "The 32 Bit Guy" Commodore-Amiga "The Crew That Never Rests" {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh PLINK: D-DAVE H BIX: hazy Amiga -- It's not just a job, it's an obsession
daveh@cbmvax.UUCP (Dave Haynie) (04/05/89)
in article <331@taniwha.UUCP>, paul@taniwha.UUCP (Paul Campbell) says: > In article <2460@tank.uchicago.edu> phd_ivo@gsbacd.uchicago.edu writes: >>> When will NeXT announce their '040 version? Looking >>>at the NeXT's system design in Byte a while ago it's pretty obvious >>>that that's what they designed it for, >>Not being a hardware engineer, how obvious is it? If so, is that a >>good argument to wait buying NeXt? Is anything known about the performance >>leap of the 68040, and---what's more important to me---the performance >>leap of its accompanying floating point processor? > I don't know, to me it seems very obvious .... > Paul It didn't seem all that obvious to me. The '040 looks like it would drop onto a MUXed A-D bus easier than the '030 (save yourself some buffers), but the reasoning behind the NeXT's motherboard being all MUXed A-D eluded me, other than the fact that it's a drop into their NuBus-ish bus. And it saves a bit on pin count, at the price of performance. If they had used static column DRAMs or some bank-interleaving techniques for system memory, rather than nybble-mode memory, I'd be inclined to belive they were thinking more of the '040 than it looks. I certainly haven't looked down much deeper than this, though. Is there some extra interfacing goop (other than the buffers for the A-D bus) between the '030 and the rest of the system that might align much better with the significantly different system bus of the '040? > Paul Campbell, Taniwha Systems Design, Oakland CA ..!mtxinu!taniwha!paul -- Dave Haynie "The 32 Bit Guy" Commodore-Amiga "The Crew That Never Rests" {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh PLINK: D-DAVE H BIX: hazy Amiga -- It's not just a job, it's an obsession
tron@wpi.wpi.edu (Richard G Brewer) (04/05/89)
In article <6492@cbmvax.UUCP> daveh@cbmvax.UUCP (Dave Haynie) writes: >Moto's been claiming that the '040 will edge out the current 88100+2*88200 >in all-around performance. Of course, the current 88ks only run at 20MHz >or so.... > >-- >Dave Haynie "The 32 Bit Guy" Commodore-Amiga "The Crew That Never Rests" It's supposed to be a fast machine - I've hears that Apple's been toying with the '040 for their new line if Macs, with a New OS Due out sometime this year (But then this doesn't suprise me, as Motorolla uses Apple's Cray for Advanced Microprocessor Design...) - Richard G. Brewer tron@wpi.wpi.edu rbrewer@wpi.bitnet
rec@dg.dg.com (Robert Cousins) (04/06/89)
In article <6492@cbmvax.UUCP> daveh@cbmvax.UUCP (Dave Haynie) writes: >in article <9876@polyslo.CalPoly.EDU>, mdeale@algol.acs.calpoly.edu (Myron Deale) says: > >> Heck, I for one would like to see a migration to RISC. An 88K has >> acceptable performance :-) > >Moto's been claiming that the '040 will edge out the current 88100+2*88200 >in all-around performance. Of course, the current 88ks only run at 20MHz >or so.... > >> Myron >-- >Dave Haynie "The 32 Bit Guy" Commodore-Amiga "The Crew That Never Rests" > {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh PLINK: D-DAVE H BIX: hazy > Amiga -- It's not just a job, it's an obsession My experience with the 88K is that it is quite fast and capable of surprising the user by its power. On the DG AViiON series, we found that if one computed the MIPS rating off of simple Dhrystones and normalized to a VAX 11/780 (in other words 1 Dhrystone MIPS = 1757 Dhrystones), the 88K gives you more MIPS than the CPU clock rate! Not bad for a RISC where it was originally surmized that the ratio of CISC instructions to RISC instructions would end up somewhat lopsided. One of the major reasons for the 88K's improved performance is the enlarged number of registers (32 x 32 bits) along with the seperate data and instruction caches (4 way set associative). Another reason that the 88K will do well is that it is easier to build a multiprocessor 88K machine in my experience than it is a 68K one. Our experience with multiple 88Ks shows that they perform wonderfully. Lastly, one reason why I'd buy an 88K over a 68K any day is that there is an ABI (applications binary interface definition) which allows truly portable applications between vendors. How many 68K vendors can point to the fact that they can run the binaries from other vendors? In fact I do believe that some vendors are actually REMOVING binary compatibility from their OSes to guarantee that this won't take place. Anyway, the 88K products are available now. Robert Cousins Speaking for myself alone.