Braving the danger that they would be lost in the Easter hiatus, Unisys Corp came out with a bumber bundle of product announcements at the end of last week, all from the Burroughs side of the house. They were headlined by two new models in the A-series mainframe line and a 50% reduction in prices for distributed processing hardware and software. The new mid-range A5 Model K and A6 Model K are dual processors offering an increase of about 75% in performance, twice the memory capacity, increased redundancy and input-output performance, and more communications options compared with the single processor A5F and A6F. The A5K arrives this quarter in the US at from $265,000 and the A6K will follow in the third quarter, starting at $230,000. The company also announced a new mid-range open reel tape drive with Group Coded Recording – GCR – capability, designed to meet demand for improved tape storage products in the entry and medium systems range. First ships are set for May and the drive costs $17,500. Also new are the CP2000 Distributed Data Processing Partner packages for the A1, A4 and A6 small mainframes, offering the 50% cost saving over the price of the components bought separately. They consist of a Unisys CP2000 communications processor, enhanced BNA Network and host software, and a 10 Mbps Local Area Network for connecting the CP2000 to the A Series host. The CP2000 packages sell for $25,000 on the baby A1 machine; $27,000 for the A4, $29,000 for the A6, and are available immediately.
