US reports say that Stardent Computer Inc, which is in the process of running down its business for closure, has been unable to find a buyer willing to take on its Intel 80860 RISC-based Vistra desktop in its entirety, and that it is now negotiating to sell off just the graphics subsystem technology used in the Vistra. That may go to Oki Electric Industry Co which supplied base hardware for the Vistra, and which has its own i860-based workstations which currently lack such a subsystem. Just 100 Vistra system are thought to have made it into the field, although Stardent engineers are still reported to be working on a 24-bit graphics unit for the thing, which is expected this month. Meanwhile, AVS Inc, into which Stardent and its leading investor, Kubota Co spun off the firm’s popular Application Visualisation System – a graphical imaging environment – is now up and running under the charge of Stardent chief executive Bill Poduska. Kubota now has worldwide marketing and development rights for Stardent’s MIPS Computer Systems Inc R3000-based Titan systems – which came from the Ardent side of the marriage – and a GS Computer Services spin-off has also been set up to handle customers of the GS series of machines which came from Stellar Computer: it will also service the Vistra customers.
