Sun and the CPU Wars (was Re: NeXT cubes or slabs.)

From: Bill/Carolyn Pechter <pechter_at_shell.monmouth.com>
Date: Fri Jun 26 18:26:17 1998

>
> William Donzelli <william_at_ans.net> wrote:
> > Actually, the 88000 was killed off because Sun went with the SPARCs for
> > their next generation of machines, the Sun-4 series.
>
> So...how did/do you read the 386i? Back then, I read it as Sun
> hedging its bets against a total victory by Intel in the CPU Wars of
> the late 1980s: they could sell Motorola, Intel, and SPARC today
> (today being then, not now) and promise to be around tomorrow no
> matter what the CPU of tomorrow looked like.
>
> -Frank McConnell
>

I read the 386i as the Unix machine which had some dos compatibility
possibilites.

Until the SunPC software SunPC card for the Sparc there was no way the
Word/Excel business types could use both Sun and Win easily.

I think they would've had a better shot with a better Intel Processor.
The 386i was the best they had at that time. The 486i would've been
much better for them -- but was dead before final introduction.

Bill

+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Bill/Carolyn Pechter | 17 Meredith Drive | Tinton Falls, New Jersey 07724 |
| 908-389-3592 | Save computing history, give an old geek old hardware. |
| pechter_at_shell.monmouth.com |
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------+
Received on Fri Jun 26 1998 - 18:26:17 BST