[SunRescue] NeXT speeds vs Sun (was: workstations list)

[James Lockwood]

On Wed, 26 Jan 2000 ward at zilla.nu wrote:

> I would disagree with the speed comparison..  We had '030 cubes up through the
> TurboColor stations, and they were all quite zippy, even compared to the SPARCs
> of the time.  Remember, the NeXTCube shipped in 1988, and had an i860 based 32
> bit framebuffer available, complete with svhs in/out.  I checked the Sun HW FAQ
> on Sunhelp, but I don't see years of introduction.  What was Sun shipping in
> 1988?  I'll have to check on the intro dates of the other models, but I do 
> recall our TurboColor smoking an early SS10 (single proc, forget clock speed).

The 4/200 was at the front of the pack.  16.67MHz SPARC.  In the same
ballpark for int work as the cubes but considerably better in fp.  The
3/400 was also available at the time and while it had a 33MHz 68030 it had
quite a fast cache.

The NeXT Dimension board wasn't available for a while after the intro of
the Cube, right?  Sun tried going the same route with the GT, a pipelined
graphics subsystem based off of the i860.

By the time the TurboColor was out the state of the art had advanced
substantially.  Suns of the era blew them away in CPU power but fell
behind in graphics.  Sun didn't make a serious try for the graphics crown
again until the Ultra line.

-James