Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!gatech!rutgers!bellcore!tness7!ninja!sys1!techsup!cpe!neese From: neese@cpe.UUCP Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc Subject: Re: GATHER and say NO to MCA! Message-ID: <12400007@cpe> Date: 5 Jul 88 14:07:00 GMT References: <42900016@uicsrd.csrd.uiuc.edu> Lines: 31 Nf-ID: #R:uicsrd.csrd.uiuc.edu:42900016:cpe:12400007:000:1667 Nf-From: cpe.UUCP!neese Jul 5 09:07:00 1988 >Dear PC clone makers; > >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. I think this is the >primary reason the other PC clone makers are still stuck to AT >bus which is out of dated for the present 386 age. I think this >is what everyone outside the clone business does not understand >about why they are still stuck to the slow AT bus or just follow IBM's >way blindly. Like it or not, we are stuck with what IBM does. They set the standards because of ignorance in the corporate level of America. Tandy has the technology to develope anything they want. Remember, before IBM jumped into the forray, Tandy developed the software and hardware for its own systems. You say the AT bus is outdated for 386 systems, and I say your wrong. The bus is being pushed, but it is not a limit to the performance of the 386 systems. Tandy has, for instance, a SCSI Adapter that allows BIOS level transfers rates of up to 2.9MBytes/sec with its newest 40/80MB SCSI Hard Drives. A lot of what is wrong with throughput on a 386 system is the peripherals that are being attached to the systems, not the adapters that go into the bus. The MC bus buys you no more throughput for HD's than the AT Bus. The HD throughput is strictly a factor of the HD and controller that is being used. Put the blame for lack of throughput where it belongs. Roy Neese UUCP @ ihnp4!sys1!cpe!neese