🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1285@cfa.cfa.harvard.EDU> ward@cfa.harvard.EDU (Steve Ward) writes:

    3.  There seems to be a split into more or less two camps of 32k
    'netters with respect to building and buying a 32k board:
        A.  the "small and inexpensive" camp.  This camp wants to be
            able to take adantage of PC hardware (I/O, periphs, chassis)
            because they either have some or can buy it cheap.  For this
            camp, spending $1k on the 32k hardware alone (not counting PC
            stuff) represents a hard ceiling; preferably < $500.00 !!
    
        B.  the "big and costly" or even "medium and moderate cost" camp.
            This camp wants lots of performance and is willing to pay for
            it.  It is unclear what the price range is, but $2k-$4k seems
            to be the range, with a few talking even higher prices.

Well, I think I could belong to camp B, but I want camp A AT compatibility.
That is why I tend not to agree with the 32032 AND the 32532 proponents;
On one hand the 32032 is too cheap (and does not have crucial bus sizing
feature), and on the other hand a 10-15 MIPS 32532 means VERY HIGH prices if
you really want to exploit it -- then one buys Heurikon. A 386 level
32332 is in my view the best compromise.

I think that the discussion is really between people that want a system
where they can run something like UNIX, i.e. a 386-like box, and
people that wants a small sort of thing, mainly to experiment with a 32k,
i.e. an Atari-like box, maybe running MINIX.

Among the former, system people, the desire to be able to put things
into an AT clone is understandable; AT components are cheap, when you
need a lot of things to build a system. Otherwise we could just buy
a SUN...

On the other hand the gizmo people are not concerned; after all the Atari
is just a motherboard and a plastic box. It is more cost effective to not
care about compatibility etc...

There may be a third camp, those that suggest a 32532 system with NuBus.
Well, Why not a VME based Heurikon ? Why not a NeXT ? They come quite cheap...


Enough for this. We may eventually want to count ourselves...

As to software, Ron Guilmette has got the whole GNU suite working for
the 32k series; in practice one only needs a kernel at that point. Anybody
has a stopgap one until I get NONE done ? :-) :-)

Somebody had asked about the Ciarcia's 286 motherboard-on-a-board; it is
described, with full schematics, in Byte Septemeber & October 1987. Note
that it is not a coprocessor board, like the Definicon or Opus or Zaiaz.
It is a full motherboard, that will just need an AT bus backplane to run.

Also, why nobody gives any serious thought to replacing the 386 with a
daughterboarded 32332? I think that could be done... I think that
replacing a 286 with a daughterboarded 32332 in 386SX like capacity could
be done, and probably much more interesting.
-- 
Piercarlo "Peter" Grandi			INET: pcg@cs.aber.ac.uk
Sw.Eng. Group, Dept. of Computer Science	UUCP: ...!mcvax!ukc!aber-cs!pcg
UCW, Penglais, Aberystwyth, WALES SY23 3BZ (UK)