Personal Computer Industry Joins Together to Announce Extended Industry Standard Architecture

New York -- Sept. 13, 1988 -- PRNewswire -- Today, a group of leading companies in the personal computer industry announced an important direction in technology. Called the Extended Industry Standard Architecture, or EISA, it is a major advance and extension to the existing PC Industry Standard Architecture (ISA). EISA will enable manufacturers to deliver significant new high-performance capabilities to personal computer users in the future while maintaining full compatibility with the installed base of almost 20 million industry-standard personal computers in use today.

EISA specifies a new 32-bit bus for Intel 386tm-based industry-standard personal computers and those based on future higher performance members of the 80386 product family. Because EISA is a superset of the existing standard, it allows personal computer users to preserve and build on their substantial investments in industry-standard hardware, software, peripherals and training. Customers will be able to use all of their existing software and peripherals in EISA products as well as utilizing new peripherals and software designed specifically to take advantage of EISA's new capabilities.

Personal computer manufacturers AST Research, Inc., (NASDAQ: ASTA) Compaq Computer Corporation (NYSE: CPQ), Epson America, Inc., Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE: HWP), NEC Information Systems, Inc., Ing. C. Olivetti & Co., Tandy Corporation (NYSE: TAN), Wyse Technology (NYSE: WYS), and Zenith Data Systems today endorsed EISA at a joint press conference in New York. Additional industry support was announced by Intel Corporation (NASDAQ: INTC), Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT), Digital Communications Associates, Inc. (NYSE: DCA), Novell, Inc. (NASDAQ: NOVL) and 3Com Corporation (NASDAQ: COMS). Their support will insure availability of hardware, software and peripheral devices designed to take advantage of the higher performance capabilities which EISA provides. Personal computers utilizing EISA and appropriate software and peripheral products are expected to become available in late-1989.

EISA is an enhancement to the existing Industry Standard Architecture which consists of three key components: microprocessors (such as the Intel 80386), operating systems (such as MS-DOS) and the input/output (I/O) bus or expansion slots. For the user, this established industry standard has made available thousands of application software packages, hundreds of 8- and 16-bit expansion boards, and hundreds of peripherals. The broad acceptance of ISA has given rise to dozens of manufacturers of industry-standard PCs. They are constantly competing to deliver new technologies to an ever expanding customer base faster, more efficiently and more cost effectively.

The higher performance Intel 80386 microprocessor and more powerful new operating systems are expected to drive PCs into new, more demanding user applications, thus increasing the need to extend the current ISA I/O bus to full 32-bit capability in the future. EISA is designed to fill this need with an open, fully compatible, 32-bit architecture platform that will support emerging work-group applications such as local area networks, communication gateways, database access by multiple users, and transaction processing.

EISA is specifically designed to meet those future needs. It delivers full-function 32-bit address and data bus extensions which support memory capacity beyond today's 16 megabyte maximum. It also provides both 32-bit direct-memory access and 32-bit bus- master support.

Additional features include programmable board setup for auto configuration of EISA boards and software-aided configuration of switch-programmable existing ISA and future EISA boards.

These features will make possible new personal computer performance capabilities resulting in a new generation of high- performance devices. The industry will see faster and larger disks and very high speed controllers for network communications. The high-performance 32-bit EISA will be required to run these devices in order to achieve optimum system performance within this emerging workgroup environment.

EISA has already gained broad support from PC manufacturers committed to incorporating the EISA bus into their future high performance Intel 386tm-based personal computers. System and applications software vendors are already working to ensure their new software will take advantage of the higher performance of the 32-bit bus. And numerous third-party peripheral and board manufacturers already are working on new products that will take advantage of the new bus.

The following additional companies have confirmed their support for the EISA architecture: Acer Technologies Corp., Adaptec, Inc. (NASDAQ: ADPT), Advanced Logic Research, Inc., Amstrad Plc., Apricot Computers Plc., Arnet Controls, Inc., Ashton-Tate (NASDAQ: TATE), AT&T Information Systems, Autodesk, Inc., Borland International, Chips and Technologies, Inc. (NASDAQ: CHPS), Computer Associates Micro Products, Computone Systems, Inc., Comtrol Corporation, Control Systems, Inc., Corollary, Inc., Dell Computer Corp. (NASDAQ: DELL), Digital Equipment Corp. (NYSE: DEC), Digital Research, Inc., Everex Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: EVRX), Excelan, Inc. (NASDAQ: EXLN), Information Builders, Inc., Interactive Systems Corp., IOMEGA Corp. (NASDAQ: IOMG), Kaypro Corp. (NASDAQ: KPRO), Lucid, Inc., Micom-Interlan, Inc. (NASDAQ: MICS), Oracle Corporation, Peter Norton Computing, Phoenix Computer Products Corp., Proteon, Inc., Quadram Corp., Quarterdeck Office Systems, Racore Computer Products, The Santa Cruz Operation, Inc., Sigma Design Inc. (NASDAQ: SIGM), The Software Link, Standard Microsystems Corp., Sun River Corp., Symantec Corp., Symbolics, Inc. (NASDAQ: SMBX), Sytron Corp., Tandon Corp. (NASDAQ: TCOR), Tecmar, Inc., Televideo Systems, Inc. (NASDAQ: TELV) Truevideo, Inc., Unisys Corp. (NYSE: UIS), Western Digital Corp. (AMEX: WDC), Wang Laboratories, Inc. (AMEX: WAN) and Wordperfect Corp.

/CONTACT: Liz Sidnam-Wright of AST Research, Inc., 714-756-4947; Bob Beach of Compaq Computer Corporation, 713-955-3644; Don Mathias of Epson America, Inc., 213-539-9140; Jill Liscom of Hewlett-Packard Company, 408-447-1664; Peter Ferguson of NEC Information Systems, Inc., 508-635-4400; James Hansen of Olivetti, +39 (125) 522-224; Ed Juge of Tandy Corporation, 817-390-3549; Kathryn Watson or Lynne Lawler of Wyse Technology, 408-433-1000; Glen-Eric Nelson or Matt Mirapaul of Zenith Data Systems, 408-433-1000/

(CPQ) HW -- NE002 -- 8391 09-13-88 07:58 EDT