clarson@ux.acs.umn.edu (Charles Larson) (01/04/90)
Here's a small mystery. I opened up one of the Pluses in the lab today, and found that the 68000 CPU was labelled as a Hitachi product. What's the deal here? <chaz>
seymour@milton.acs.washington.edu (Richard Seymour) (01/04/90)
In article <1009@ux.acs.umn.edu> clarson@ux.acs.umn.edu (Charles Larson) writes: > >Here's a small mystery. I opened up one of the Pluses in the lab today, and found that the 68000 CPU was labelled as a Hitachi product. > >What's the deal here? > ><chaz> no mystery -- Hitachi has been alicensed second source for Motorola CPU chips for years... many companies allow other companies to duplicate chips for a variety of reasons: (1) to provide THEIR customers with assurance that minor hiccups (flood, fire, earthquake, strikes) will not interrupt the supply of chips -- there's a "second source" the y can go to. (2) to acquire the rights to sell a chip or technology that the "second source" has developed. (3) to simply increase production capacity without building factories. -- dick