AT&T’s big Data Systems launch yesterday extended the 3B range up to a 15-processor system claimed to offer up to 43 MIPS and aimed at transaction processing applications, and included two Olivetti-designed 80386 machines launched by Olivetti back in June (CI No 709). The new 3B4000 uses a master-slave arrangement – as opposed to the fully symmetrical multiprocessor some observers were looking for – using processors from AT&T’s WE32100 family, with a master processor dynamically allocating tasks to other available processors, and also able to run jobs itself. The system, which in its full configuration is claimed to support up to 300 users, follows the trend of allowing processors to be added to give progressively more powerful systems. Prices for the 3B4000, which runs Unix System V.3, start at $187,000; AT&T is promising to ship in March. AT&T produced not only vice-president of Data Systems Vittorio Cassoni but also Microsoft’s Bill Gates at the launch, which included some 40 computer and networking products overall. The 80386-based 6386 WorkGroup System machines, launched as the M380 by Olivetti in June, are promised to be able to run the major operating systems written for the chip, including Unix System V concurrently with MS-DOS – using VP/ix, presumably – and MS OS/2. They run up to eight tasks concurrently using the Olivetti-developed 386-TopJob, and AT&T claims the machines will support up to 32 users. The desktop 6386 model has from 1Mb to 48Mb RAM, while the floorstanding 6386E has from 2Mb to 64Mb; both machines come with either 5.25 or 3.5 floppies and pric-es range from $4,899 to $10,395. AT&T is also promising the ability to run Xenix tasks when the merged Unix/Xenix product – looking further away every day, finally arrives.
