From: adams@pdv2.fmr.maschinenbau.th-darmstadt.de (Adams)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.pc-clone.32bit,biz.sco.general,comp.unix.sys5.r3,comp.unix.sysv386
Subject: Re: PC Unix/Xenix vendors
Date: 25 Jan 93 23:44:55
Organization: TH-Darmstadt
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	<ADAMS.93Jan23013219@PDV2.pdv2.fmr.maschinenbau.th-darmstadt.de>
	<2B62D876.3982@tct.com>
NNTP-Posting-Host: pdv2.fmr.maschinenbau.th-darmstadt.de
In-reply-to: chip@tct.com's message of Sun, 24 Jan 1993 17:57:09 GMT

In article <2B62D876.3982@tct.com> chip@tct.com (Chip Salzenberg) writes:

>   CPU development isn't the point.  It's the rest of the computer that
>   counts.  Of all computer markets, only the PC clone market has driven
>   the creation of whole-motherboard chip sets, such as by OPTi and
>   Chips&Technologies.  

Simple wrong. microSPARC by Ti integrates ALL onto ONE dice. Period.
RTFM!

BTW: some R4000 clones by IDT do much the same. 

>  And common peripheral boards for the ISA bus are
>   so cheap you can practically give them away.

Right. Some vendors give necessary peripheral interfaces away
all on a mother board. Why should I pay additionally for SCSI, 
ISDN, UART ? 

>   >>   PC UNIX rides that wave of good and cheap hardware, 
>   >Current cheap PC hardware does not seem to match current challenge very
>   >well. Why do you think do Local Bus etc occur concurrently to GUIs?

Given price/performance ratio a GSX board by SUN is competitive to
video cards of a PC. 

>
>   Local bus video is one
>   result of this process; it has breathed new life into PC clones used
>   for graphics-intensive applications (and/or with GUIs).
>
One more patch. I am more than reluctant to call it kludge, too 
much praise.

>   >At least here in Europe, one can prove, that workstations based
>   >on PC will be tremedously more expensive than one based on SPARC.
>
>   If that's true, perhaps the process of exporting the computers, with
>   tariffs etc, throws prices off.

NO. It is the add-on policy. To set up a competitive workstation
for CAD [best remembered, discussion of last afternoon].
	
	EISA bus, as ISA imposses DMA and thereby paging limit to
		lower 16MByte. [No! Kernel bcopy is NO solution for 
		graphics.] T
	Tower 
	SCSI-controller, adequate
	32 MByte RAM
	Weitek 4167 
	Video Card for 1200x1000 resolution, VSync above 87 Hz
	( in fact yields pixel clock of about 130 MHz)
	ISDN card 
	Solaris 2.1 

	Yielded roughly 20000,-- DM.

	(Remark: Monitor, unboundled C-compiler, disks are excluded,
	as they would have to be bought additionally to SPARC station).

	Think about how much SUN you may buy for  20000,-- DM,
	if disks and monitor are excluded.

   >Do not forget, that clone makers start to focus on SPARC meanwhile.

>   You mean they're beginning to consider diversifying, in addition to
>   maintaining the continuously profitable PC clone industry.

Margins are narrow. In fact the clock doubled chips are a necessity
for clone markes, as they save them a redesign of their mother boards.
In fact, most cloners can not afford a board design suitable for 66MHz
square wave.

>   >Window NT is targeted to processors like Mips R3000/R4000 and DEC/alpha.
>   And the 486.

Window NT developments are done on R3000, as Olivetti provides a
special development station for Windows NT at better than usual
conditions. All I know about Windows NT on 486:
It is said to be unusable slow. There was one demonstration
of a beta system  some developper here around were attending.

>   >Next versions of OS/2 will be based on a mciro kernel, and IBM sees
>   >OS/2 just as one step into distributed computing (DCE) and propose
>   >their PowerRisc therefor.

>   OS/2, microkernel or no, will run on the 486 for the forseeable future.

OS/2 development is done by IBM, and IBM told the world, that 
OS/2 is regarded to be an "intermediate step to Distributed Computing
Environment (DCE)" (Hope to have cited correctly.)

Why should they spend any money they already miss on further
development?


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Newsgroups: comp.unix.pc-clone.32bit,comp.unix.sys5.r4