At two million square feet of floor space, Comdex in Las Vegas is bigger and more impossible than ever – it’s said to be the biggest show in any industry. This is the first year that Unix has made any of the noise, the dinmakers being the new Sparc boxes – details below. Still, with seven exhibition sites, 1,850 booths and 100,000 or more people it was great having a map, compliments of Sparc International, to help.

Dell unbundles System V.4

In the wake of Dell Computer Corp’s Unix Expo announcement of Unix System V.4 for its 80386 and 80486 machines, requests for the operating system by itself have compelled Dell to make a policy decision to unbundle its operating system. Calling it ideal for development, vice-president Glenn Henry says that Dell will not guarantee the operating system if it is not put on a Dell box, but will do what it can – within reason – to offer support even if it’s not bundled with a Dell machine. He says it has been implemented successfully on a Compaq Computer machine.

Everex Systems previews ESIX V.4 implementation of Unix

Personal computer maker Everex Systems Inc of Fremont, California, one of the backers of Motorola Inc’s 88000 RISC microprocessor was also at Comdex, preannouncing its ESIX System V.4 implementation, which strips out device drivers and speeds up the file system. It currently includes Open Look but OSF/Motif will be added, with an expected introduction date at UniForum next January – deliveries to follow in the first quarter of next year.

Tektronix disperses its workstation staff as hopes of a buyer fade

Tektronix Inc personnel at Comdex confirmed rumours that the company has now dispersed and re-deployed the staff that were working in its workstation division – which the company said last month that it must sell or shut down within 60 days (CI No 1,532) – confidence that a buyer will be found does not appear to be high, underlined by Data General Corp chief executive Ron Skates con-firming that his company was not interested in the division when he visited the UK.

Far East threat to US X-terminals looms next year, visitors say

According to Comdex attendees that have been out there lately, the Taiwanese, Koreans and Japanese are preparing to enter the X-term-inal business in earnest and the Taiwanese and Koreans that includes Goldstar, Sam-sung, Daewoo and Hyundai – believe that they could threaten the leadership position of US firms like Network Computing Devices Inc. What they saw and heard seemed to indicate that the high-end of the market would see more competition than the low-end. Far Eastern incursion, however, is not imminent, but more likely to happen later in 1991. Goldstar, however, was at Comdex showing off its GoldenView colour X-terminal which uses a 20MHz, 32-bit Intel 80960 RISC for its CPU and claims an execution rate of 7.5 MIPS and burst rates of 20 MIPS. Resolution is 1,024 by 768 and it displays 256 colours. Goldstar has 17, 19 and 20 screens and uses an optimised X Server 11.4 and will cost around $4,000.

Sparc news: Sun salesmen disappointed with deal to co-market Brite Lite…

As expected, the Sparc-based laptop, Brite Lite, developed by San Diego start-up Research Development & Innovations Inc, which incorporates Sun Microsystems’ 20MHz IPC board and runs Mac and MS-DOS applications as well Unix, turned up in the Sun Microsystems booth at the Comdex show in Las Vegas last week. The deal the pair cut is a simple co-marketing agreement rather than the clear-cut OEM pact certain Sun salesmen were hoping for. This way Sun gets to test market the box to examine the potential demand for such a machine. Sun won’t take any orders as such, but will turn leads over to Research Development. The San Diego start-up, which still has Solbourne Computer fish to fry, says it’s happy enough with the alliance because it gives it total hegemony over the product. Research Development doesn’t have a sales force that can call on its Sun leads, but TriGem chairman Young Kim, head of the Korean outfit that will manufacture the Brite Lite, says that he and R

esearch Development’s president Rick Schrameck can handle this, as they are only interested in big numbers.

first East European Sparc machine will be manufactured in Poland…

Sun Microsystems’ Eastern Bloc operation has turned up a customer interested in producing the first Sparc-based machine to be built behind the rusted curtain. The Polish Academy of Sciences is having a series of discussions this week with the LSI Logic/Opus Systems teams about their instant SparcKit.

Taiwanese Sampo may leapfrog Far East competition into US market…

Sampo Corp of America, the US arm of the $1,000m-a-year Taiwanese company best known for its monitors, showed up at Comdex last week with its LSI/Opus Sparc machine. Sampo, which produces Sun’s monitors, said it currently has no formal plan, price or budget for the box. Instead, it’s watching initial responses, and will then work out the answers to these questions. One very real possibility if demand isn’t apparent, would be for Sampo to delay any introduction. It is still looking for a company that would support the production of between 10,000 to 15,000 boxes per quarter which is the expected production rate a year after introduction. It figures that part of the added value it offers is the US managers that run the subsidiary, giving it an advantage over other Far East Sparc system builders trying to launch producds in the US.

and Sparc wannabees are dismayed at the number of their siblings

There were suggestions at Comdex that some of the LSI/Opus instant Sparc Kit customers, (CI No 1,544) were very surprised to hit Comdex and find a dozen other identical boxes. – Maureen O’Gara