Hitachi Ltd has duly announced the new models in its M680 and M660 families: the new models are designed to support the new M/ASA answer to IBM’s ESA with a matching 16 Terabyte address space under the VOS3/AS rewrite of MVS/ESA. There are 12 new models in the line – dubbed E models. The new M/ASA architecture is claimed to provide a major reduction in data access time. Features of VOS3/AS include more efficient use of the large memory capacity, particularly for running the XDM/EAE2 database-data communications system and the TMS-4V/SP/EA transaction processing system. Concurrency on multiprocessors is claimed to be enhanced, and up to 255 VOS3 systems can be linked together in a network. A multi-level auto recovery function is designed to confer a degree of fault-tolerance, and the company’ answer to IBM’s System-Managed Storage is three new software subsystems, DMFHSS, DMFVSS, DMFLSS, which exploit the extended memory and large-capacity disk drives. The Model E processors come with Hitachi’s Processor Resource Management Feature answer to IBM’s PR/SM, supporting up to 14 logical partitions on the M-680s, seven on the M-660s. New peripherals include the M-6591 magnetic tape library system; H-6581 cache disk control unit; H-6916 solid state store with 4Gb of memory having an average access time of 0.1mS; the new H-6286 page printer claimed to set a world record of 135ppm. The company also followed IBM in charging for software according to the processor size. The new machines are scheduled for shipment in August.
