Taiwanese Acer Group Inc’s Altos Computer Systems has introduced two high-end multi-processing Unix systems running version 2.0 of Santa Cruz Operation Inc’s MPX multi-processing extensions on top of Santa Cruz Unix V.3.4. The EISA-based System 10000 supports up to 128 users and is rated by the firm at from 27 MIPS to 70 MIPS. It comes with from one to four 33MHz Intel Corp 80486 processors, from 16Mb to 256Mb RAM, 2.5Gb disk and Altos’s 64-bit data path input-output FrameBus device, which it says performs transfers at 264Mb per second. The System 15000 uses up to four 50MHz CPUs, is rated at from 41 MIPS to 160 MIPS and supports up to 200 users. Both are built on the base hardware technology developed by Acer for the 3000MP AcerFrame box. The Altos operation is now headed by Ronald Chwang and housed within one of Acer America Inc’s business units in San Jose, California – the Altos name retained for its profile in the Unix marketplace. Acer does all the hardware devlopment and manufacturing, while the Altos unit adds Unix software (and some hardware) functionality. Acer UK Ltd’s Christopher Hay says the company is comfortable with Santa Cruz’s recently declared intention to edge towards Unix System V.4 and says Acer’s collaboration in the Advanced Computing Environment initiative has provided the firm with the experience of RISC and Microsoft NT, should that be required in the future, though it has only Intel’s P5 part in its sights at present as far as chip technology goes. Indeed the AcerArc1 Advanced Computing Environment box, which was built around interchangable MIPS R4000 RISC and Intel 80486 parts and shown earlier this year running pre-release NT is now very much on hold, with the only users being Microsoft and Acer internally. Altos systems are now distributed by Leeds-based Computer Services Technology Ltd and Metrologie UK Ltd: Altos’ relationship with Microvitec Plc’s Logitek came to an end a few months ago. The thing is out now, and prices for the System 10000 go from UKP23,000 for 32 users to UKP39,000 for a 64-user configuration. The System 15000, due for delivery by the end of the year, will sell at around UKP10,000 more than the base 10000 system.
