dave@convex.csd.uwm.edu (David A Rasmussen) (12/07/90)
I got this from someone who saw my previous query about what these machines look like and figured I'd include it for those of us in north america who don't know anything about it, and for those in the know in europe to add to if they wish. Thanks to Dag and John for the following: From dhmyrdal@solan.unit.no Thu Dec 6 07:07:24 1990 From: Dag H}kon Myrdal <dhmyrdal@solan.unit.no> To: dave@csd4.csd.uwm.edu (Dave Rasmussen) Subject: Re: Please describe acorn machines >From your letter, I guess you have a brief knowledge of the Archimedes A310... Since the launch of that machine, the A3000 (an amiga500-killer), the A400-series (much the same as A300, but can be upgraded easier), the R140 (UNIX-box, with hires mono monitor, the same hardware as A4XX) has appeared. Also, the OS have changed considerably, making a *very* good GUI with cooperative multitasking, and with the option of going into CLI-mode when this is convenient (by pressing ctrl-alt-f12). Acorn have made available an extensive range of printer-drivers and a font-manager which is rather quick, and uses outline-fonts... All these, and a lot of other niceties can be shared by any application. And that's *not* everything! This summer, two new Unix-machines was launched: the R225 and R260 - with the new 30MHz ARM3 processor, on-chip cache... I've included some details below (from a letter to me from Acorn) You can now get A540, which has the same hardware spec. as R260, but without UNIX, and ~GBP1500 cheaper... -------------from letter to me from John Bowler ------------- >From john@acorn.co.uk Wed Jun 20 14:22:39 1990 > I read about the two new machines in your answer. Could you > give more details about them? Basically the hardware is similar to the R140 execpt for:- ARM3 cpu Expandable memory (4-16Mbyte) SCSI disc interface (R260) + 100Mbyte disc (or) no disc interface (R225) Changes to the electronics (plus the ARM3 cpu) also allow ``Super VGA'' (800x600) screen modes and a 640x480 (VGA) 8 bit per pixel mode. There will be a new release of RISC iX (1.2) (which will also be available to existing R140 users) which will give new things like a Motif based toolkit and X/Open compatibility - although the new screen modes will not be available on the R140. [...] > Also, will new machines continue to use the same casing, power supply > and so on? [...] The case is the same (as the A440 case), however there is a new power supply. I don't think it likely that an upgrade will be offered (by anyone) because almost everything would be changed. -- Dave Rasmussen - Systems Programmer/Manager, UW-Milwaukee Computing Svcs Div. Internet:dave@uwm.edu, Uucp:uwm!dave, Bitnet:dave%uwm.edu@INTERBIT AT&T:414-229-5133 USmail:Box 413 EMS380,Milwaukee,WI 53201