Control Data Corp and Thomson-CSF SA of France have agreed a joint manufacturing and marketing agreement on certain processors and peripherals for the military market. The products have still to be specified, and according to Electronic News, they may include Control Data’s military disk drives and Thomson’s Motorola 68000-based workstations. Control Data is the US Navy’s prime contractor for the standard Mass Memory Storage Device for ruggedised computers, and the company also supplies the Air Force with its 444R Spacecraft computer. If military and government approval were forthcoming, both products could be marketed by Thomson in Europe. Thomson has confirmed that the MLXUR workstations are being discussed as part of the exchange agreement since Control Data doesn’t have a 68000-based offering, although it does have miltary workstations based on MIPS Computer Systems Inc RISC microprocessors.
