Hewlett-Packard Co has now launched its promised Precision Architecture RISC upgrade for its HP Apollo 9000 Series 400 customers, claiming that it boosts performance to a factor of 10. The Series 400 Model 425e is upgradeable to the Model 710 from the summer at not more than $6,000 to give fourfold performance boost. Upgrades from the Models 400dl, 400t and s, 425t and s and 433s to Series 700 are planned for next year with the target price for upgrade kits being $6,000 to $8,000. Series 400 customers wanting to stay with the Motorola Inc architecture can upgrade to the 33MHz MC68040, which is already shipping. The company also has tools that give Domain/OS and HP-UX customers a common user interface, a common windowing and editing environment, an improved version of Network File System and enable them to share information on an Apollo Token Ring-based local network. A licence transfer programme for Domain system software and layered software will enable users to convert software licences to HP-UX at attractive prices. The company will also offer further releases of Domain/OS as well as HP-UX. Domain/OS 10.4, which is Open Software Foundation Application Environment System-compliant, is shipping, and HP-UX Release 9.0, with the same feature, follows shortly.New interoperability tools – DMX, HP Visual User Environment and the Token Ring board are designed to enable Domain/OS customers to integrate HP-UX-based Series 700 workstations into their networks more easily: DMX is an X Window System-based windowing and editing environment based on the original Domain/OS Display Manager, and it should be ready by June.
