Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!seismo!sundc!pitstop!sun!amdcad!ames!lll-tis!helios.ee.lbl.gov!pasteur!ucbvax!ucsfcgl!cca.ucsf.edu!root From: root@cca.ucsf.edu (Computer Center) Newsgroups: comp.os.misc Subject: Re: GATHER, and Say NO to MCA! Summary: There is a lot of work done now. Message-ID: <1297@ucsfcca.ucsf.edu> Date: 30 Jun 88 01:35:33 GMT References: <3400001@uicsrd.csrd.uiuc.edu> Organization: Computer Center, UCSF Lines: 43 In article <3400001@uicsrd.csrd.uiuc.edu>, leein@uicsrd.csrd.uiuc.edu writes: > > I have some thought to share with you. Why do you not say no to IBM's > proprietary Micro Channel Bus Architecture? The possible answer I can > expect from such companies as Ta??? and De?? is that they do not have > the technology to develop their own version of OS/2 for an advanced > 32-bit bus they might choose instead of MCA. > ... > So listen to me and gather as OSF members did, and choose a > new advanced bus like NuBus (which is in the public domain) or ... > > H. SONG > song@uispg.csl.uiuc.edu The IEEE bus standards groups have done a lot of high level design work on non-proprietary buses. However, buyers are not interested in any single supplier buses unless the supplier is _huge_. Multiple supplier buses would be a different story. We are already seeing many dual-bus systems in the 386 machines, one bus is AT compatible for peripherals and the other is a non-standard 32-bit bus for the memory. How about getting together over an existing standard (Futurebus?) for this 32-bit access to allow not only memory but high performance (can you say animated graphics?) peripherals to be used and continue the AT bus at least for a transitional period. Actually, the AT bus is not all that bad for a lot of stuff or we wouldn't see machines based on it with present performance levels. I am not personally knowledgeable about the NuBus but I have gathered that NuBus peripherals may (must?) be processor specific, e.g. ROMs with executable code. This immediately implies fragmentation and confusion of the market. Am I correctly informed? Thos Sumner (thos@cca.ucsf.edu) BITNET: thos@ucsfcca (The I.G.) (...ucbvax!ucsfcgl!cca.ucsf!thos) OS|2 -- an Operating System for puppets. #include