Tabakal@UB.CC.UMICH.EDU (10/03/90)
Well, since everyone I know, including myself, became a bit cynical
at Sculley's letter, I thought we all needed a bit of good news to
perk us up. So, I asked Tony Fadell, the designer of the super-fast
65816-lookalike chip to give us an update. What follows are his
words --
We have done one proto run so far... We received these parts
in July. We turned the design to our fab. company in End
Feb. Begin Mar. of 1990. Their turn around time was so slow
because of the way we needed the design routed. Another
problem was that our design (gates and busses) was so large
that we needed to rethink a few things. But we finally
received the parts... I was beginning to get real skeptical
of our fab but they finally pulled through. We plugged the
CPUs into the GS and the TransWarp GS they met the necessary
electrical and timing specs. The chips appeared to work
however, one condition of an address mode was not being spit
out correctly in all cases. We went back to the design stage
and have fixed the problem. We are into the routing stage
once again... this time we should have a much much faster
turnaround. (approx. 3 weeks)
Also we maxed out the proto at approx 17Mhz. This should be
the same for the next protos also. Our fab company is
starting out their 1 micron process and we already are
preparing the conversion of the chip to the new technology.
We have been running simulations and have found them to be
upwards of 25Mhz.
No we have not fizzled!! We are still working hard...
Tony says that it's okay to reprint this as much as we like. So, spread
the word. There may be a ][gs outrunning a Mac ][ci in the near future.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Todd A. Bakal All snappy sayings aside,
U of M Apple User's Group !Index will be updated
Ann Arbor, Michigan ASAP or my name's not...
Internet: Tabakal@ub.cc.umich.edu FTP: ummts.cc.umich.edu
Tab@terminator.cc.umich.edu 35.1.1.43 (PC5:)
UUCP: ...!uunet!ub.cc.umich.edu!tabakal BITnet: Tabakal@UMICHUBjh4o+@andrew.cmu.edu (Jeffrey T. Hutzelman) (10/04/90)
Only one problem - where are we going to get a IIgs motherboard that can
handle that kind of speed? Where will we get memory that can handle it?
Or is it already available?
-----------------
Jeffrey Hutzelman
America Online: JeffreyH11
Internet/BITNET:jh4o+@andrew.cmu.edu, jhutz@drycas.club.cc.cmu.edu
>> Apple // Forever!!! <<toddpw@tybalt.caltech.edu (Todd P. Whitesel) (10/05/90)
jh4o+@andrew.cmu.edu (Jeffrey T. Hutzelman) writes: >Only one problem - where are we going to get a IIgs motherboard that can >handle that kind of speed? Where will we get memory that can handle it? > Or is it already available? It's called an accelerator -- a peripheral that allows you to use a faster CPU. AE's Transwarp is doomed, if Zip GS is finally shipping... Todd Whitesel toddpw @ tybalt.caltech.edu
jb10320@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Desdinova) (10/05/90)
In article <Yb2qVLy00awK0MiW83@andrew.cmu.edu> jh4o+@andrew.cmu.edu (Jeffrey T. Hutzelman) writes: >Only one problem - where are we going to get a IIgs motherboard that can >handle that kind of speed? Where will we get memory that can handle it? > Or is it already available? Oh, that's no problem. Just drop one of these puppies into a Zip GS, put in a 100MHz crystal (wow!), and put in at least 32k of 40ns SRAM (40 should do it, no? Maybe not, I suppose it depends on the design). Add into the brew a 1Meg/Sec DMA SCSI (Apple or RAMfast, take your pick), and voluminous quantities of RAM, and all the power users have their II of the gods. Instead of II-in-a-mac, it's II-eats-a-Mac, which is one of my favorite GS PD disk names. >Jeffrey Hutzelman >America Online: JeffreyH11 >Internet/BITNET:jh4o+@andrew.cmu.edu, jhutz@drycas.club.cc.cmu.edu > >>> Apple // Forever!!! << Amen. -- Jawaid Bazyar | Blondes in big black cars look better wearing Senior/Computer Engineering | their dark sunglasses at night. (unk. wierdo) jb10320@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu | The gin, the gin, glows in the Dark! | (B O'Cult) Apple II Users Unite! Storm the New Product Announcement and Demand Justice!
gwyn@smoke.BRL.MIL (Doug Gwyn) (10/05/90)
In article <Yb2qVLy00awK0MiW83@andrew.cmu.edu> jh4o+@andrew.cmu.edu (Jeffrey T. Hutzelman) writes: >Only one problem - where are we going to get a IIgs motherboard that can >handle that kind of speed? Where will we get memory that can handle it? > Or is it already available? The motherboard doesn't have to see the higher CPU clock rate. That is why the TransWarp/GS contains its own cache. You could use the ASIC chip in a TWGS card. (For speeds higher than about 9MHz you'll need to replace the TWGS cache with faster RAM.)
paul@nuchat.UUCP (Paul Hutmacher) (10/05/90)
In article <1990Oct4.194648.14215@nntp-server.caltech.edu> toddpw@tybalt.caltech.edu (Todd P. Whitesel) writes: > AE's Transwarp is doomed, if Zip GS is finally shipping... If Zip Tech handles the release, sale, and support of the Zip GS anything close to the way they did their Zip Chips for the //e then I suspect AE will have nothing to worry about. Put another way I have had on TWarp in the same amount of time I went through three Zip Chips for my old //e. I also called and order the TWarp and received it the next day. It took months for the Zip Chip to show after it was ordered. No comparison, sorry. -- paul@nuchat.UUCP {uhnix1, uunet}!nuchat!paul paul%nuchat.uucp@uhnix1.uh.edu