In an announcement that seems fully to justify Sperry Corp’s extravagant plunge into Unix systems three years ago when it signed enormous OEM contracts with NCR Corp, Arete Systems Corp and Computer Consoles Inc, the last-named yesterday revealed that Sperry successor Unisys Corp had extended its OEM contract for another three years and doubled its size to $100m. Unisys calls the Computer Consoles machines the Series 7000, and they come in above the 6000s from Arete and the 5000s from NCR. The agreement covers the full Power6/32 minicomputer line, built around a proprietary 32-bit Computer Consoles processor, and is extended to include the new 6/32MP multiprocessor version that is rated at up to 15 MIPS. The original processor was replaced by an enhanced one last year, and the line now starts with the 6/32EX, supporting 32 to 80 users and rated at 5 MIPS; a processor swapout is required to upgrade it to the 6/32X, rated at 8 MIPS; adding a further CPU and floating point unit upgrades this to the asymmetric master-slave 6/32MP rated at 15 MIPS. The Waltham, Massachusetts company is working on a new top-end processor at its Irvine, California minicomputer development centre.
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