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.

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