The Rolm Mil-Spec Computers division of Loral Corp, which previously specialised in ruggedised versions of Data General minis, is diversifying into Unix with an agreement to buy R2000 RISC microprocessors, its Unix implementation and optimised compilers from MIPS Computer Systems Inc, Sunnyvale, California under a contract worth $15m over five years. Rolm Mil-Spec announced the resulting ruggedised, high-performance supermicrocomputer as the Shark this week. It comes in 8 MIPS and 10 MIPS versions with up to 64Mb main memory, and runs under MIPS Umips version of Unix System V.3. The C, Fortran, Pascal and Ada compilers are integrated with the operating system, which in turn is tailored to the MIPS architecture. The MIPS R2000 processor in the Shark integrates the Defense Advanced Research Agency’s Core MIPS instruction set architecture with a VMEbus. The machine is aimed primarily at the military market; no prices provided.
