Digital Equipment Corp has a whole string of machines that will use the Alpha RISC on the stocks for launch from towards the end of this year. Computer Magazine Publications Pty’s Sydney-based Unix Update has spotted what are likely to be the first five, starting with a desktop workstation code-named Flamingo that will use a single processor, and is being designed to deliver 120 SpecMarks performance. Key feature of the machine, which will take up to 512Mb memory and input-output capacity of 93M-bytes per second, is the graphics subsystem, with integrated smart frame buffer, capable of delivering 500 two-dimensional vectors a second. It will take an optional three-dimensional graphics co-processor with a geometry processor running at 400 MFLOPS and the ability to draw 1.5m two- or three-dimensional vectors a second and 300,000 triangles a second. The machine will have three TuboChannel slots. Its big brother, whose code-name is uncertain, is a floorstanding version that will take up to 1Gb of memory and is being designed to deliver 140 SpecMarks. It will have six slots, but the other features are the same as for the Flamingo. These two are expected to offer OSF/1 as the primary operating system. For the VAX market, the products in the DEC plan start with Cobra, described as an open office system pitched at the market currently served by the VAX 4000. It will have one or two processors and deliver 140 or 280 SpecMarks with up to 2Gb memory, and use Futurebus+, with input-output at 130Mbytes-per-second or more. For the VAX 6000 market, DEC is thought to be cooking up something code-named Laser Box, which will have one to four processors, and may appear before the Alpha is ready since it is being designed to take either a VAX or an Alpha CPU – Neon for VAX, Ruby for Alpha seem to be the code names. Target performance range is 180 to 720 Specmarks and input-output should go from 100 to 400Mbytes-per-second. It will take up to 14Gb memory – memory capacities are almost unimaginably vast – and bus options are Futurebus+ and XMI. To take over from the VAX 9000 in the fullness of time, DEC has conceived Blazer, again with one to four processors and the same SpecMark range and the same configuration options as Laser – the key difference being that it is being designed for high availability with integrated uninterruptible power supply.
