NeXT Computer Inc has decided to go ahead and adopt the Motorola Inc 88000 RISC according to Microbytes Daily, which hears from a source that wished to remain anonymous that NeXT is planning to announce in October a workstation based on two 88110 RISCs. The machine is said to be code-named NRW – NeXT RISC Workstation presumably – and will include real-time video compression to disk and may also support FDDI, according to the source. The 88110 combines the functionality of the 88100 CPU and the 88200 cache and memory management units on a single chip and includes a high degree of parallelism; Motorola rates it at 63 SPECmarks. Motorola says the chip will support three-dimensional colour graphics in addition to parallel operation, and the Mach operating system used in the NeXT can support multiple processes via threads. The box is to be about $100 per MIPS, said the source.
