At its third annual European Software Forum, which begins today in the La Defense district of Paris, Inc C Olivetti & Co SpA will roll out its first contribution to the Advanced Computing Environment initiative in the form of the Olivetti M700 Series, built around MIPS Computer Systems Inc’s R4000 RISC microprocessor. Described as a high-performance personal computer, the first model in the series, the M700-10, is compliant with ACE’s Advanced RISC Computing specification and is intended to bridge the gap between high-end MS-DOS and Windows personal computers and Unix workstations, according to the company. In common with other firms that have already announced ARC-compliant machines, such as Silicon Graphics Inc and MIPS itself, there is no ACE operating system yet available for the M700-10; Microsoft Corp’s NT and Unix System Laboratories Inc’s Unix System V.4 are Olivetti’s intended riders for the new machine, though neither is expected much before the end of the year. The EISA bus M700-10 uses a 50MHz R4000PC and is rated at 40 SPECmarks. It is the production version of the PWS 4000 software conversion system developed at Olivetti’s Advanced Technology Centre in Cupertino, California, which has been shown at all the major computer exhibitions since Comdex/Fall last October (CI No 1,790). Olivetti says over 100 PWS 4000s are in use; no price or ship date yet.
