Oki Electric Industrial Co has started sounding out the US computer market to see how it takes to a brand new 80860 RISC-based workstation running Unix System V.4 and commercial applications. The 45 MIPS machine is one of the few units to use the Intel RISC chip as the CPU – the 80860 was originally envisaged as a co-processor with good graphics and floating point performance. Oki is still working out important particulars on the box, such as price, availability and target markets. The machine made its debut at the Unix Solutions show in Anaheim, California, but was not announced as a product. A formal launch will need far more software than currently runs on the chip – an issue that the new Mass860 group has been formed to fix. Oki is a founder member, along with Intel, IBM, Samsung Electronics and Alliant Computer Systems Inc. Oki currently has 33MHz 80860 machines up and running, but these will be used as software reference points. The units to be sold will use 40MHz parts which Oki expects to start getting from Intel any day.
