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- From: JGrace@TetraSoft.com (Joseph R. Grace)
- Newsgroups: comp.sys.next.hardware
- Subject: Re: New RISC workstations / 88110 demise
- Message-ID: <1992Nov4.191509.27979@tetrasoft.com>
- Date: 4 Nov 92 19:15:09 GMT
- References: <1992Nov4.082525.29903@csus.edu>
- Sender: Joe@tetrasoft.com
- Organization: TetraSoft International
- Lines: 77
-
- Well I don't claim to have a monopoly on NRW dreams but here's mine!
-
- [Science fiction alert! :-]
-
- Physical Form:
-
- NRW will come in only one form, the brick (at least initially)!
-
- Video:
-
- You buy the same brick for both color and mono. Mono simply requires a special
- color'ish cable. Color simply requires more video (and, pragmatically, main)
- memory on the motherboard.
-
- CPU(s):
-
- The base brick comes with one 88110 but is upgradable to the maximum
- configuration of four 88110's. Each additional CPU requires a new 88110 and
- additional main and shared memory for that CPU. The high-end configuration is
- nothing more than an upgraded base brick. Each CPU will have its own main
- memory, but will have a limited amount (megabytes addressable) of shared
- memory. The CPU's will talk over a high-speed internal messaging switch and
- over shared memory (or does the 88110 have a messaging mechanism already
- built-in?). The motherboard will be upgradable to 512 MB main memory on-board
- (with all four CPU's in use).
-
- External Connections:
-
- Upgraded:
- SCSI-2 bus will be built-in (not just a connector (:-) for peripherals, e.g.,
- printers, hard disks, tape drives, and scanners. Internal, gigabyte disks will
- be optional. The dedicated printer port will be dropped in favor of SCSI-2
- (and ethernet) printer connectivity. The brick will have room for 2 3.5"
- internal hard disks.
-
- "Upgraded":
- ADB bus will be built-in (as with the new stations) for
- keyboard/mouse/trackball/pad support.
-
- Upgraded:
- 2 high-speed (> 100K bits/sec.) serial ports will be built-in
-
- New:
- There will be a dedicated ISDN port for ISDN interconnectivity. This port will
- include the ISDN extender functionality, obviating the need for an ISDN
- extender on the new bricks.
-
- Upgraded:
- There will be *no* DSP processor (since the CPU will support DSP functionality
- but in a shared, multitasking way), but there will be the same Digital Signal
- Processing port to support DSP applications and peripherals.
-
- New:
- The brick will have 3 (SUN SparcStation) SBus slots for I/O and video cards.
- The main video is built-in, but other video options can be added. The ethernet
- is also built-in, but additional networking interfaces (e.g., ATM, FDDI, SMDS)
- can be added via the SBus. Unfortunately, these slots and the ethernet will be
- visible only to the initial CPU (so other CPUs must channel information through
- the initial CPU).
-
- Upgraded:
- 3.5" floppies will still be supported as now. Built-in CD-ROM will be an
- option.
-
- That's it!
-
- Did I miss anything?
-
- Cheers,
-
- = Joe =
-
- p.s., I needed that. All these impending competitor announcements were getting
- depressing! :-)
- --
- Joe Grace <JGrace@TetraSoft.com> (NeXTMail preferred.)
- TetraSoft International Business and Personal Productivity Tools for NeXTSTEP
-