IBM Corp yesterday duly unveiled its first pass at an Intel Corp 80386SX chip enhanced with its own extensions – an 8Kb on-chip cache and adjustments to the microcode to speed frequently-used instructions. IBM calls the 20MHz part the 386SLC and claims it is up to 80% faster than a standard 20MHz 80386SX. Intel Corp has rights to make the part itself if it chooses, but IBM claimed that what had been assumed to be a key feature of its agreement with Intel – that it was allowed to make no more than 20% of its requirement of the Intel microprocessors it fabricates – is not the case at all, although it will remain a major buyer from Intel. The first product to use the new chip, which of course is in short supply at present so can’t go into a high-volume product, is the PS/2 Ultimedia Model M57 SLC. The components are pre-packaged, fully integrated, ready-to-use and expandable – it adds CD-ROM drive, XGA graphics and 16-bit audio capture and playback to the basic Model 57 configuration and will be offered with MS-DOS 5.0, OS/2 2.0 and Microsoft Corp Windows 3.0 with Multimedia Extensions pre-loaded on a CD-ROM disk. Priced at UKP4,210, excluding keyboard and monitor, it is hardly cheap and will not be generally available here in the UK until March 1992. The new 386SLC is also offered as a $780 upgrade for the Model 57 SX and installs in the maths co-processor socket on the system board, from December. The company also added the PS/2 Model 35 LS diskless workstation with 20MHz 80386SX and 2Mb at $2,100, and 80486SX entry models for the PS/2 90 XP and 95 XP. With 80Mb disk, the 90 starts at $6,000, the 95 at $9,245. A new PS/2 Communications Cartridge I is a one-slot board for the L40 SX laptop that links it to a host or local area network. It is $600 from January.
