Tolerance Computer SA, Paris, has launched a range of fault tolerant plug-in boards for Unix-based Intel Corp 80486 systems. The Twinix kit comes with two boards, incorporating the company’s own direct connect architecture, bus-to-bus high speed links and feature the Chorus Systemes SA Chorus/Mix Unix System V.4 microkernel. The boards offer automatic re-start and dual synchronisation facilities. According to the firm, Twinix’s increased security and fault tolerance will enable an 80486 system to behave as a multi-processing box, offering linear power increases depending on the number of CPUs. The company is hoping to cash in on a niche – fault-tolerant personal computing – that has been largely overlooked by traditional players like Tandem Computers Inc and Stratus Computer Inc, by offering low-cost micro-based fault-tolerant systems to the market. The company is targeting financial and medical markets. Twinix two-board kits will begin shipping by the end of this quarter, priced at $10,000. Tolerance says a four board configuration based on Intel’s P5 CPU will be launched in the first quarter of 1993. The company, which was to have introduced a mid-range, 80486-based TC1000 series of fault-tolerant systems earlier this year, says they’ll also be out in the first quarter of 1993. It attributed problems to setting up sales channels for the line, not to the technology.
