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From: rb@cci632.UUCP (Rex Ballard)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Cost of Designing a New Computer
Message-ID: <809@cci632.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 6-Jan-87 18:37:04 EST
Article-I.D.: cci632.809
Posted: Tue Jan  6 18:37:04 1987
Date-Received: Tue, 6-Jan-87 23:44:55 EST
References: <950@husc6.UUCP>
Reply-To: rb@ccird2.UUCP (Rex B)
Organization: CCI, Communications Systems Division, Rochester, NY
Lines: 88
Summary: What are you trying to build.

After reading some of the follow-ups to this posting, I thought
I would ask for a little additional information and offer a little
clarification.

In article <950@husc6.UUCP> reiter@harvard.UUCP (Ehud Reiter) writes:
>I'm trying to get some order of magnitude estimates for what resources
>are required to design a state-of-the-art "new" computer system.  I'm
>currently using the following figures, and I was wondering what people
>thought of them.
>
>New micro using existing microprocessor and existing system software
>				-    1's of engineer man-years
>New microprocessor		-   10's of engineer man-years
>Fab plant to build microprocessor - $100,000,000 of equipment
>New micro system software	-  100's of engineer man-years
Try 1000's of man-years if you want to talk starting from scratch.
>New supermini hardware		-   10's of engineer man-years
>New supermini system software	- 1000's of engineer man-years
Try 10's of man-years if simply porting existing sytems.
>Port UNIX to new supermini	-    1's of engineer man-years
>New mainframe hardware		-  100's of engineer man-years
>New mainframe system software	- 1000's of engineer man-years
Try 10's of man-years if simply porting existing systems.
>
>Notes:	A) The context is the question of how much would it cost a
>protectionist country to develop its own "local" computer system.

The issue here is how "protectionist" do you mean?  If you are talking
about the U.S.S.R., and expecting such a country to reach state-of-the-art
using no "public domain", shareware, or published information, and violating
no copyrights or liscence agreements, all of your figures are way off.

In general, your assumption that microprocessor developement is less expensive
than mainframe development is false.  It appears cheaper, since there is
much more volunteer effort and garage software, which, even when not used
directly, has significantly influenced concepts, principles, and technology,
causing the micro industry to be as complex and sophisticated as the mainframe
industry.

On the other hand you include porting UNIX to a super-mini, so this would
imply using available software, such as PD and Shareware as application
software.  Under these conditions, the major expenses are writing the
compiler, writing the device drivers (lowest level), and tweaking the OS
to take advantage of appropriate memory management.

Having worked in a company that has done both a micro (5/32) and a
super-mini (6/32) and currently a super-computer (according to press releases),
the differences are actually only quite slight, at worst perhaps by a factor
of two.  Getting a box from gates to full Sys-V or 4.2 seems to take about
50-100 man-years, depending on the ability of the management/staff.

The killer expense, of course, is when one wishes to introduce new technology.
For example the Xerox/Apple applications interfaces were major efforts,
involving 1000-2000 man-years of effort.  The 6/32 FT his the grandson
of a system that has been evolving for 10 years, with an average of 100
people/year.  Even the "trivial" contribution of the PC, though little
was invested by IBM, involved thousands of 5-30 person teams and companies
over 4 years to achieve the quality and technology now available.

Communication, interaction, cross-pollenation, and coupling, both at the
staff and product level are important factors as well.  Perhaps Inmos
style multi-processor technology or some "new kid" will be able to muster
the 1-10,000 man-years required to make their "new technology" the
"state-of-the-art" of the 1990's.

>	C) Any data on the cost of adapting application software to a new
>hardware architecture is also welcome.

An important factor is the actual archetectural factors of the system,
at both the hardware and software level.  Porting generic UNIX/C applications
like "pipes and filters" for text is quite trivial.  On the other hand,
porting an RT-11/assembler application, with routines that are counting
on automatic re-initialization of statics as a result of overlays, application
level knowledge of the device drivers, and pathalogical coding can actually
be worse than analysing the design of the application and starting from
scratch.

I know this appears very general, but the questions involved don't come
with "pat answers".  I've seen applications written in 1 staff-year that
were quite complex, but based on known technology, a good development
environment, and a good organization.  I've also seen simple enhancements
that took 100 staff-years to do that were quite simple, but involved
innovation, a development environment that involved weeks for one compile,
test, and debug round, and software so proprietary that even other people
in the same group wouldn't be told about it.

Draw your own conclusions.
Rex B.