Evans & Sutherland Computer Corp says the Freedom 1000 and 3000 three-dimensional graphics accelerators that it is to sell on Sun Microsystems Inc systems (CI No 2,036), have been designed as processor-independent units that could well end up supporting other CPU architectures in future, though none were mentioned specifically. Initially the company is likely to get the Sbus versions of Freedom out into the Sparc-compatible market, and says it has already been approached by several of those suppliers. Mbus versions of the accelerators will follow, although there’s no great rush because Sbus can meet all immediate performance requirements, the company says. Freedom currently uses up to 16 Am29050 RISC CPUs, but Evans & Sutherland says that it could accommodate as many as 32 of the things. The accelerators won’t go on to Sun’s price lists and there is no money changing hands in the relationship – apart from some joint marketing and advertising, where Sun will bear the brunt. Evans & Sutherland is hoping to sign up relevant Sun value-added resellers for the products. Sun is looking to shoot down Silicon Graphics Inc’s systems with Freedom, admitting that its graphics specialist neighbour in Mountain View, California, has been a major irritation to us over the last few years. Sun says its own graphics efforts, especially the GS and GT environments were too little too late, although the two-dimensional GX environment will continue as a low end offering. GS, and GT at the high-end, won’t be getting too much more attention, though GT prices are to be cut to bring it into line with Freedom. UK prices go from UKP20,800 for the 500,000 vectors per second Freedom 1050 unit plus display – or UKP34,400 with a Sparcstation 10/30 – to UKP62,750 for the 3,000,000 vectors per second Freedom 3300 with display – UKP81,600 including a Sparcstation 10/41. Evans & Sutherland has no plans to develop another workstation of its own: its previous outing, the MIPS R3000-based ESV line, which has some 2,000 users worldwide, is no longer being actively promoted.
