Despite lusty promises of 250 MIPS 80486-compatible microprocessors or whatever it is from Intel Corp, and Motorola Inc talking enthusiastically about a 68050, the heyday of the complex instruction set microprocessor begins to look as if it is drawing very gently to a close. Following Microsoft and IBM’s suggestion on Monday that OS/2 will be implemented for RISC architectures (CI No 1,306) comes news taht Sun Microsystems Inc has killed its effort to develop 68040-based successors to the 68030 Sun-3 family, and is phasing out the Sun-3 altogether. According to Electronic News, Sun killed the 68040 effort because it became clear that the machines would not match the performance of its current Sparc RISC systems. Sun is keeping its options open, saying it would do a 68040 machine if its users insisted. At the low end, Sun is working on an 80486-based 486i station.
