Prime Computer Inc has extended its new 5000 Series of proprietary minicomputers with launch of the 5370, a CMOS machine delivering 25% to 41% better performance than the 6150 which it replaces; it implements two CPUs on a single board and is also 65% to 90% faster than the 5340, the next most powerful model in the CMOS Series 5000. It is rated at 17.2 Dhrystone MIPS, matching the ECL 6450, which costs from $470,845 against $226,000 for the new box. The dual CPU design is implemented in a set of seven 50,000-gate CMOS arrays that include all the logic apart from control store and cache and are a reimplementation in CMOS of the older pipelined ECL processor that took up 12 boards. The board also includes interfaces for two independent input-output buses, extended memory bus interface and interfaces for cache, control store and maintenance processor. With two processors, it keeps running if one CPU or memory board fails. Memory goes from 64Mb to 128Mb and it takes up to 32.3Gb disk using 637Mb drives. As well as coming as a new system it is available as a board swap-out upgrade for any other 5000 Series machine, and is available now at $226,000 – UKP200,000 in the UK – with one 673Mb disk and an unlimited user licence to PrimOS.
