Path: gmdzi!unido!mcsun!sunic!uupsi!njin!rutgers!mcnc!duke!wolves!ggw
From: ggw%wol...@cs.duke.edu (Gregory G. Woodbury)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.m88k
Subject: Tektronix Scientific shutdown rumour
Keywords: tektronix
Message-ID: <1990Oct14.003906.26373@wolves.uucp>
Date: 14 Oct 90 00:39:06 GMT
Organization: Wolves Den UNIX and Usenet node
Lines: 10
Posted: Sun Oct 14 01:39:06 1990
X-Checksum-Snefru: 40abcb55 f9ed8c60 9b97c6a6 1c76684a
A net.acquaintance who was working at Tektronix in Washington or Oregon
reports that they are abandoning the 88K workstation effort! Is this
just a rumour or has this been in the news and I missed it or what?
Am I way off base?
--
Gregory G. Woodbury @ The Wolves Den UNIX, Durham NC
UUCP: ...dukcds!wolves!ggw ...mcnc!wolves!ggw [use the maps!]
Domain: g...@cds.duke.edu ggw%wol...@mcnc.mcnc.org
[The line eater is a boojum snark! ] <standard disclaimers apply>
Path: gmdzi!unido!mcsun!inria!ftc!ndoduc
From: ndo...@framentec.fr (Nhuan Doduc)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.m88k
Subject: Re: Tektronix Scientific shutdown rumour
Keywords: tektronix
Message-ID: <1536@ftc.framentec.fr>
Date: 15 Oct 90 08:32:12 GMT
References: <1990Oct14.003906.26373@wolves.uucp>
Sender: n...@framentec.fr
Lines: 19
Posted: Mon Oct 15 09:32:12 1990
In <1990Oct14.003906.26...@wolves.uucp> ggw%wol...@cs.duke.edu
(Gregory G. Woodbury) writes:
>A net.acquaintance who was working at Tektronix in Washington or Oregon
>reports that they are abandoning the 88K workstation effort! Is this
>just a rumour or has this been in the news and I missed it or what?
>Am I way off base?
Over there in France, a marketing friend of me boasted last september that
we can wait for a big change from 88k to "his" risc by october. Now we're
only the 15th, so ...
The strangest of all is that when I mentionned this to another marketing
friend (of another 88K vendor), he seems to agree, reluctantly through, to
the "unavoidability" of this move ...
--nh
Nhuan DODUC,
Framentec-Cognitech, Paris, France, ndo...@framentec.fr or ndo...@cognitech.fr,
Association Francaise des Utilisateurs d'Unix, France, do...@afuu.fr
Path: gmdzi!unido!mcsun!uunet!comp.vuw.ac.nz!waikato!canterbury.ac.nz!phys169
From: phys...@canterbury.ac.nz
Newsgroups: comp.sys.m88k
Subject: Re: Tektronix shutdown & move away from 88k's??
Message-ID: <1990Oct19.120218.9450@canterbury.ac.nz>
Date: 18 Oct 90 23:02:17 GMT
References: <1990Oct14.003906.26373@wolves.uucp> <1536@ftc.framentec.fr>
Organization: University of Canterbury
Lines: 14
Posted: Fri Oct 19 00:02:17 1990
In article <1...@ftc.framentec.fr>, ndo...@framentec.fr (Nhuan Doduc) writes:
> Over there in France, a marketing friend of me boasted last september that
> we can wait for a big change from 88k to "his" risc by october. Now we're
> only the 15th, so ...
> The strangest of all is that when I mentioned this to another marketing
> friend (of another 88K vendor), he seems to agree, reluctantly through, to
> the "unavoidability" of this move ...
>
What does this mean? Are 88K's going the way of Beta vtr systems, or are there
just too many companies doing workstations. I get the impression Sparcs are so
far out in front that other chips, even if they're better, are close to doomed.
Well, that's putting it a bit strong, perhaps, but what is a realistic
appraisal of the situation?
Mark (worried) Aitchison, Uni of Canty, New Zealand.
Path: gmdzi!unido!mcsun!uunet!samsung!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!ncar!gatech!
prism!dali!ken
From: k...@dali.gatech.edu (Ken Seefried iii)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.m88k
Subject: Re: Tektronix shutdown & move away from 88k's??
Message-ID: <15497@hydra.gatech.EDU>
Date: 19 Oct 90 16:15:52 GMT
References: <1990Oct14.003906.26373@wolves.uucp> <1536@ftc.framentec.fr>
<1990Oct19.120218.9450@canterbury.ac.nz>
Sender: n...@prism.gatech.EDU
Reply-To: k...@dali.gatech.edu (Ken Seefried iii)
Organization: The House Of Fun
Lines: 39
Posted: Fri Oct 19 17:15:52 1990
In article <1990Oct19.120218.9...@canterbury.ac.nz> phys...@canterbury.ac.nz writes:
>What does this mean? Are 88K's going the way of Beta vtr systems, or are there
>just too many companies doing workstations. I get the impression Sparcs are so
>far out in front that other chips, even if they're better, are close to doomed.
>Well, that's putting it a bit strong, perhaps, but what is a realistic
>appraisal of the situation?
In my humble opinion....
I think this is pretty close to the mark. While I would not call the
88k doomed, any more than I would call, say, the Intergraph Clipper
doomed, or the AMD29000, I think it has missed the chance to gain any
sizeable market penetration. I think you'll find a trend in the
industry toward clustering around 2 or 3 architectures (as we have
really always done: 8080/z80 and 6502, 80x86 and 680x0, etc.).
Unless something really strange happens, you'll see the SPARC and
MIPS chips float to the top of the heap. The rest of the pack is
left to niche markets or oblivion.
As far as technical issues of which chip is `best', I haven't seen too
many cases where this has been a criteria for being top of the heap.
It usually has more to do with issues like who delivers first, who has
the more agressive marketroids or who gets a design win with someone
big.
At this point in the game, I personally could care less whose RISC I
use. They are all fast, there are nice boxes built with all of them,
and they all have reasonably good Unixes. Right now I'm looking
for the chip with the kind of software profusion that has made the IBM
PC the thing most of the world thinks of when they think of computers.
Narrowing the market to a few decent architectures will help this
along (cloning, e.g. LSI Logic SPARCkit, etc., helps even more).
Sigh...and I had such hopes for the 88k.
--
ken seefried iii "A snear, a snarl, a whip that
k...@dali.gatech.edu stings...these are a few of
my favorite things..."
Path: gmdzi!unido!mcsun!ukc!dcl-cs!aber-cs!athene!pcg
From: p...@cs.aber.ac.uk (Piercarlo Grandi)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.m88k,comp.arch
Subject: Re: Tektronix shutdown & move away from 88k's??
Message-ID: <PCG.90Oct28162504@teachh.cs.aber.ac.uk>
Date: 28 Oct 90 16:25:04 GMT
References: <1536@ftc.framentec.fr> <1990Oct19.120218.9450@canterbury.ac.nz>
<15497@hydra.gatech.EDU> <2176@lupine.NCD.COM> <42310@mips.mips.COM>
Sender: p...@aber-cs.UUCP
Followup-To: comp.arch
Organization: Coleg Prifysgol Cymru
Lines: 127
Posted: Sun Oct 28 17:25:04 1990
Nntp-Posting-Host: teachh
In-reply-to: mash@mips.COM's message of 23 Oct 90 02:22:26 GMT
Posting-Front-End: GNU Emacs 18.55.4 of Thu Nov 23 1989 on athene (berkeley-unix)
[ ... Tek is out of 88K based systems -- poor 88k ... ]
Note that I am redirecting followups to comp.arch, because the alleged
demise of the 88k is not longer the sole subject of this thread.
On 23 Oct 90 02:22:26 GMT, m...@mips.COM (John Mashey) said:
mash> In article <2...@lupine.NCD.COM> r...@NCD.COM (Ron Guilmette)
mash> writes:
rfg> I think this is pretty close to the mark. While I would not call
rfg> the 88k doomed, any more than I would call, say, the Intergraph
rfg> Clipper doomed, or the AMD29000, I think it has missed the chance
rfg> to gain any sizeable market penetration. I think you'll find a
rfg> trend in the industry toward clustering around 2 or 3 architectures
rfg> (as we have really always done: 8080/z80 and 6502, 80x86 and 680x0,
rfg> etc.). Unless something really strange happens, you'll see the
rfg> SPARC and MIPS chips float to the top of the heap. The rest of the
rfg> pack is left to niche markets or oblivion.
mash> I don't know what the true metric is: chip unit volume, system
mash> unit volume, or total value.
Well, if we are comparing chips it is probably total value of chips
shipped. Number of chips shipped is also another good metric, and
probably we want to see both numbers, because they say different things.
Given that CPU&support chips are a small fraction of system cost, it
seems silly to decide the popularity of a chip architecture on the unit
or sales volume of the systems it goes into.
rfg> The last time I heard, MIPS was still a little (basically one
rfg> product) company that was bleeding red ink. Also, the last thing I
rfg> heard about DEC's push in the (MIPS-based) RISC business was that
rfg> they were really not selling very many DECstations at all.
Well, MIPS has got the DEC account. That is by itself interesting;
actually *very* interesting; and DEC is selling fairly well, even if
other parts of the company are doing not so well. After all, as some
business weekly suggested some time ago, MIPS' business is basically
technology licensing, like Adobe, not products.
mash> Of course, some facts would help here: 1) MIPS sells machines
mash> ranging from $9K desktops thru $150K servers, and has cranked out
mash> quite a few system products in a few years.
Incidentally, why not make a MIPS PC/AT compatible? I mean, a machine
that has an R3000 chip set instead of a 386 chip set, and is otherwise
identical (can use the same peripherals, boards, cages, etc...). I think
that 386 compatibility would easily be done with a 386 plug in board
(instead of doing the opposite, like Everex and others, who put with
good success an 88k or 29k onto a plug in board) and VP/ix or DOSmerge.
It would be extraodinarily inexpesive -- I guess that an R3000 chip set
would be cheaper than a 386/486 chip set. I would believe that going for
the 8088/80286/80386 motherboard replacement market would be nice, and
could provide the needed volume for MIPS, or AMD or Motorola, or SPARC,
or the ARM, or anybody else.
If somebody says that the PC/AT motherboard technology is not well
suited to running high speed RISC chips, please tell me why the 486
seems competitive with such high speed RISC chips when running in PC/AT
type motherboards (ISA or EISA). Also, please tell me in which way it is
different from motherboard technology in the new Sun SPARC machines,
except that the letter do not have that many slots :-).
mash> We do have 700+ people, and have done >$100M so far in 1990.
mash> (This is NOT big, of course, but it's not a little 1-product
mash> company.)
This is *miniscule*. Many regional car dealerships, or Coca Cola
distributors, or McDonald's licensees, have substantially higher
turnovers and profits in the USA. Naturally it is interesting that MIPS
are doing 100M/700 == 150K dollars per employee on average. That they
are not posting huge profits is simply a miracle (I know better of
course).
Also consider Dell, or CompuAdd, or many of the players in the IBM PC
clone market. By comparison with them, MIPS is pretty small, and does
not have comparable growth rates or profits; it has substantially higher
turnover per employee though.
mash> 2) MIPS has designed both CMOS and ECL chipsets of various kinds,
mash> and has all kinds of technology-license products, as well as lots
mash> of software products, both of its own, and third-party.
Ok, ok, John Mashey, we know you are darn good. We know, OK? :-).
Not only that, you are the only ones, apart from SPARC, that have
licensed your thing to many second sources. You are also "open"!
mash> 3) We just announced results for last quarter, and I'd hardly call
mash> it bleeding red ink (slight profit), although life is certainly
mash> not easy out there right now for almost everybody in this
mash> business.
Including even the above mentioned clone makers.
mash> As is well-known, we are working hard with our colleagues at
mash> B.I.T. to improve yields on the ECL chips.
In the latest issue of Byte I read that BIT have *dumped* the R6000
development. Am I hallucinating? The justification given was that it is
expected that CMOS chips will soon reach the same speeds, and the window
of opportunity for an ECL based CPU has been reestimated from half a
dozen years to one or two, which is too little. Too bad, because I love
ECL.
mash> It doesn't take much arithmetic to see what happens when you have,
mash> for instance, 20 $150K computers you'd like to ship, and each is
mash> missing one chip..... $3M takes a big byte from a quarter, at our
mash> size.
That is why MIPS had better be a technology company. No matter how much
liquidity they have, big oligopolists can make their customers pay for
their suppliers' mistakes better.
mash> Well, do note that MIPS also has plenty of money in the bank,
mash> although hardly in this league. As I think another poster noted,
mash> the web of partnerships, relationships, investors, etc, around
mash> MIPS is much bigger than MIPS itself.
Both would melt in ten seconds if MIPS looked like being a loser.
Fortunately MIPS looks like being a winner.
--
Piercarlo "Peter" Grandi | ARPA: pcg%uk.ac.aber...@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk
Dept of CS, UCW Aberystwyth | UUCP: ...!mcsun!ukc!aber-cs!pcg
Penglais, Aberystwyth SY23 3BZ, UK | INET: p...@cs.aber.ac.uk
Path: gmdzi!unido!mcsun!uunet!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!winchester!mash
From: m...@mips.COM (John Mashey)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Tektronix shutdown & move away from 88k's??
Message-ID: <42483@mips.mips.COM>
Date: 29 Oct 90 19:44:09 GMT
References: <1536@ftc.framentec.fr> <1990Oct19.120218.9450@canterbury.ac.nz>
<15497@hydra.gatech.EDU> <2176@lupine.NCD.COM> <42310@mips.mips.COM>
<PCG.90Oct28162504@teachh.cs.aber.ac.uk>
Sender: n...@mips.COM
Reply-To: m...@mips.COM (John Mashey)
Organization: MIPS Computer Systems, Inc.
Lines: 39
Posted: Mon Oct 29 20:44:09 1990
In article <PCG.90Oct28162...@teachh.cs.aber.ac.uk> p...@cs.aber.ac.uk
(Piercarlo Grandi) writes:
>Well, MIPS has got the DEC account. That is by itself interesting;
>actually *very* interesting; and DEC is selling fairly well, even if
>other parts of the company are doing not so well. After all, as some
>business weekly suggested some time ago, MIPS' business is basically
>technology licensing, like Adobe, not products.
About 70% of our business comes from product, about 30% from
technology. This is public knowledge, and I say it all the time
in public talks.
It would REALLY BE GOOD, if people who don't understand
the business stopped making definitive claims about it....
>
>
>mash> We do have 700+ people, and have done >$100M so far in 1990.
>mash> (This is NOT big, of course, but it's not a little 1-product
>mash> company.)
>
>This is *miniscule*. Many regional car dealerships, or Coca Cola
>distributors, or McDonald's licensees, have substantially higher
>turnovers and profits in the USA. Naturally it is interesting that MIPS
>are doing 100M/700 == 150K dollars per employee on average. That they
>are not posting huge profits is simply a miracle (I know better of
>course).
Actually, the $100M/700 is NOT the way anyone computes $/employee.
You have to compute $(year)/(average number of employees), which
of course gave something like $200K or more per employee last year.
>mash> As is well-known, we are working hard with our colleagues at
>mash> B.I.T. to improve yields on the ECL chips.
>
>In the latest issue of Byte I read that BIT have *dumped* the R6000
>development. Am I hallucinating? .....
Yes, or Byte is.
--
-john mashey DISCLAIMER: <generic disclaimer, I speak for me only, etc>
UUCP: m...@mips.com OR {ames,decwrl,prls,pyramid}!mips!mash
DDD: 408-524-7015, 524-8253 or (main number) 408-720-1700
USPS: MIPS Computer Systems, 930 E. Arques, Sunnyvale, CA 94086
Path: gmdzi!unido!mcsun!uunet!dg!dg-rtp.dg.com!quirk
From: qu...@dg-rtp.dg.com (Peter Quirk)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.m88k
Subject: Re: Tektronix shutdown & move away from 88k's??
Message-ID: <1095@dg.dg.com>
Date: 30 Oct 90 19:45:19 GMT
References: <1990Oct14.003906.26373@wolves.uucp> <1536@ftc.framentec.fr>
<1990Oct19.120218.9450@canterbury.ac.nz> <656404917.9119@proa.sv.dg.com>
Sender: r...@dg.dg.com
Reply-To: qu...@dg-rtp.dg.com (Peter Quirk)
Organization: Data General Corporation, Research Triangle Park, NC
Lines: 18
Posted: Tue Oct 30 20:45:19 1990
The 88K is not going away. In fact, Motorola has announced (leaked?)
news of the 88110
recently and published a broad brush roadmap for the 88K cpu for the
next ten years.
They predict they will be delivering 400 MIPS on a CMOS chip before the
end of the decade.
Almost as interesting was the announcement of the 88300 - a combination
of the 88110 and
68030 I/O for embedded controller applications. All those 68030-based
controllers will
start screaming when fitted with an 88300.
--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
-
Peter Quirk Internet: qu...@quokka.webo.dg.com
Data General Corporation Phone: +1 (508)898 4679
3400 Computer Drive Fax: +1 (508)898 2684
Westboro, MA, USA 01581
Path: gmdzi!unido!mcsun!uunet!jarthur!usc!apple!voder!dtg.nsc.com!my
From: m...@dtg.nsc.com (Michael Yip)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Tektronix shutdown & move away from 88k's??
Message-ID: <1481@frapper.nsc.com>
Date: 31 Oct 90 20:51:24 GMT
References: <2176@lupine.NCD.COM> <42310@mips.mips.COM>
<PCG.90Oct28162504@teachh.cs.aber.ac.uk> <43029@eerie.acsu.Buffalo.EDU>
<P0R6UO2@xds13.ferranti.com> <2804@crdos1.crd.ge.COM> <VBS657B@xds13.ferranti.com>
Reply-To: m...@frapper.UUCP (Michael Yip)
Organization: National Semiconductor, Santa Clara
Lines: 8
Posted: Wed Oct 31 21:51:24 1990
After all this price arguments, did anyone include the cost of the
software (eg the UNIX OS and util) into the comparsion?
-- Mike
PS: By the way, the 1024x768 monitor + video card is probably
an interlaced display. And that is A LOT cheaper than the
1120x1024 display that is non-interlace (I assume).
Path: gmdzi!unido!mcsun!uunet!seismo!ukma!uflorida!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!
zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!winchester!mash
From: m...@mips.COM (John Mashey)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.m88k,comp.arch
Subject: Re: Tektronix shutdown & move away from 88k's??
Message-ID: <42589@mips.mips.COM>
Date: 31 Oct 90 23:10:23 GMT
References: <1990Oct14.003906.26373@wolves.uucp> <1536@ftc.framentec.fr>
<1990Oct19.120218.9450@canterbury.ac.nz> <656404917.9119@proa.sv.dg.com>
<1095@dg.dg.com>
Sender: n...@mips.COM
Reply-To: m...@mips.COM (John Mashey)
Followup-To: comp.sys.m88k
Organization: MIPS Computer Systems, Inc.
Lines: 91
Posted: Thu Nov 1 00:10:23 1990
In article <1...@dg.dg.com> qu...@dg-rtp.dg.com (Peter Quirk) writes:
>The 88K is not going away. In fact, Motorola has announced (leaked?)
>news of the 88110
>recently and published a broad brush roadmap for the 88K cpu for the
>next ten years.
>They predict they will be delivering 400 MIPS on a CMOS chip before the
>end of the decade.
>Almost as interesting was the announcement of the 88300 - a combination
>of the 88110 and
>68030 I/O for embedded controller applications. All those 68030-based
>controllers will
>start screaming when fitted with an 88300.
Sigh. There is a discussion theme going on, here, and in comp.arch,
about the unreliability of second/third/fourth-hand information.
The discussion takes the form of:
A: I hear that magazine X printed that Y said such and such,
or that company Q is doing or has done Z.
B: I was there, Y didn't say that, X got it wrong
OR: I work for Q, and we didn't do Z; here are the true facts
I thought that more of the details of this particular issue (88110)
were covered in <42311.mips.mips.com>, posted October 23.
If thatr got lost somewhere, I'll repost it: it quoted the interesting
parts of the presentation, a copy of which is on my bookshelf.
The number given was 4000 mips/chip, and the presentation at
Microprocessor Forum was explicitly NOT an announcement; no dates were
given, other than to say (under pressure from audience)
it would be announced next year.
A single foil covered the 88300 family:
"Family of integrated processor products
88000 Architecture compatible
Emphasis:
High integration
Low cost
Low power
Modular design
Compatible with 68300 family I/O modules
Leverages 88110 technology, tools, and software"
*opinion* that is not an announcement, and if you can tell me from that
what they'll look like and whether or not they'll be competitive with
other parts on the market whenever they come out, I am imnpressed.
Just for calibration:
1) The 68040 was described (not announced) at Hot Chips, 6/89.
2) In 1986 Motorola presentations, the 78000 (previous number of 88000) had the
following schedule:
Alpha parts July 1987
Beta Oct 87
Production (200-500 sets) April 88
MC Production July 88
The foils also say (exact quote):
"1987 - 20 MHZ CMOS 78000 MPU and 78200 CMMU CHIP SET (13 MIPS
AND 6 MFLOPS)
1989 - 30 MHZ 78000 CHIP SET (20 MIPS AND 10 MFLOPS)
1989 - A/I ORIENTED DERIVATIVE PROCESSOR AND CMMU CHIP SET
(>2 MLIP)
* TAG PROCESSING IN PROCESSOR
* GARBAGE COLLECTION IN CMMU
1990 - VECTORIZED FLOATING POINT
1991 - GAAS INTEGER UNIT (>50 MIPS)"
You may recall that the 88K was announced 2Q88, but it was about 3Q89
before many production chips were shipped, given the FP bugs.
Now, this is NOT to say that Moto is bad and evil, and says things that
don't happen. Vendors often have plans they believe in, and things just
don't work that way, and t his happens to almost everybody, especially since
customers DEMAND a 10-year roadmap, when NOBODY really knows exactly what
they're going to do in 5 years, much less 10.
However, the point is: the industry right now is undergoing a terrific
"futures war" in which everyone outpredicts everybody else, and wonderful
bubble charts are drawn to show futures. In addition, at conferences,
people describe one chip set after another, each faster. The only problem
is that many of them NEVER come to pass. Of things described in
Hot CHips and Microprocessor Forum, within last 18 months, at least 3-4
CPUs described to eager audiences have already been cancelled before
they were ever shipped, and many more had better have some Good Luck
if they're going to make it soon enough to be interesting.
--
-john mashey DISCLAIMER: <generic disclaimer, I speak for me only, etc>
UUCP: m...@mips.com OR {ames,decwrl,prls,pyramid}!mips!mash
DDD: 408-524-7015, 524-8253 or (main number) 408-720-1700
USPS: MIPS Computer Systems, 930 E. Arques, Sunnyvale, CA 94086
Path: gmdzi!unido!mcsun!ukc!edcastle!aiai!richard
From: rich...@aiai.ed.ac.uk (Richard Tobin)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Tektronix shutdown & move away from 88k's??
Message-ID: <3686@skye.ed.ac.uk>
Date: 1 Nov 90 16:33:54 GMT
References: <2176@lupine.NCD.COM> <42310@mips.mips.COM>
<PCG.90Oct28162504@teachh.cs.aber.ac.uk> <43029@eerie.acsu.Buffalo.EDU>
<P0R6UO2@xds13.ferranti.com> <2804@crdos1.crd.ge.COM>
<VBS657B@xds13.ferranti.com> <1481@frapper.nsc.com>
Reply-To: rich...@aiai.UUCP (Richard Tobin)
Organization: AIAI, University of Edinburgh, Scotland
Lines: 17
Posted: Thu Nov 1 17:33:54 1990
In article <1...@frapper.nsc.com> m...@frapper.UUCP (Michael Yip) writes:
>After all this price arguments, did anyone include the cost of the
>software (eg the UNIX OS and util) into the comparsion?
With luck, within a year or so, they may be two industrial-strength
free Unixes available - GNU, from the Free Software Foundation, and
4.4-detox (ie BSD "detoxified" - with the AT&T code removed).
If this happens (and of course, we've all been looking forward to it
for some time now...) it could greatly open up the market for unix
workstations.
-- Richard
--
Richard Tobin, JANET: R.To...@uk.ac.ed
AI Applications Institute, ARPA: R.Tobin%uk.ac...@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk
Edinburgh University. UUCP: ...!ukc!ed.ac.uk!R.Tobin
Path: gmdzi!unido!mcsun!uunet!wuarchive!cs.utexas.edu!
news-server.csri.toronto.edu!utgpu!utzoo!henry
From: he...@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Tektronix shutdown & move away from 88k's??
Message-ID: <1990Nov2.173045.11519@zoo.toronto.edu>
Date: 2 Nov 90 17:30:45 GMT
References: <2176@lupine.NCD.COM> <42310@mips.mips.COM>
<PCG.90Oct28162504@teachh.cs.aber.ac.uk> <43029@eerie.acsu.Buffalo.EDU>
<P0R6UO2@xds13.ferranti.com> <2804@crdos1.crd.ge.COM>
<VBS657B@xds13.ferranti.com> <1481@frapper.nsc.com> <3686@skye.ed.ac.uk>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Lines: 10
Posted: Fri Nov 2 18:30:45 1990
In article <3...@skye.ed.ac.uk> rich...@aiai.UUCP (Richard Tobin) writes:
>With luck, within a year or so, they may be two industrial-strength
>free Unixes available - GNU, from the Free Software Foundation...
I would be really surprised to see a GNU kernel (never mind a *system*,
which requires dozens of utilities to be even marginally usable) within
a year. I'd be even more surprised if it resembled Unix much.
--
"I don't *want* to be normal!" | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
"Not to worry." | he...@zoo.toronto.edu utzoo!henry