Acer Group Inc of Taiwan reports that it has been shipping its AcerARC1 systems since early January to spur development of Advanced Computing Environment software, claiming to be one the first computer manufacturers to provide a truly Advanced RISC Computing-compliant system. AcerARC1 computers will be displayed on the Microsoft Corp and Acer stands at the Hannover Fair next week. The workstation uses the MIPS Computer Systems Inc R4000 RISC processor to deliver 42 SPECmarks, and it comes fully configured to meet independent software vendor development needs, the company claims. It offers 32Mb of memory, expandable to 64Mb, to support Microsoft’s new 32-bit operating system, Windows NT and Windows NT compiler, and ACE-compliant Unix operating system versions. The host, bus-based SCSI controller supports a 435Mb hard disk drive, 600Mb CD-ROM, Ethernet and an audio controller. The high-resolution graphics subsystem contains 2Mb of video RAM and supports resolutions of up to 1,280 by 1,024 pixels. The workstations were developed in San Jose by the Acer-Altos Systems Business Unit, but the company did not give prices.
