Newsgroups: comp.sys.transputer
From: NewsMan <2021@please.dont.send.email>
Subject: Re: Post Mortem
Date: Wed, 18 Feb 1998 08:01:22 +0000
Mime-Version: 1.0
Message-ID: <7wyo3DASVp60Uwti@spyglass.demon.co.uk>

Andy Rabagliati <andyr@rmi.net> wrote
>The problem was pathetic followup - nobody even thought of designing a
>successor until much too late.
>
>To design chips in the Eighties / Nineties / Noughts you need lots of money.
>
>Lots. And the best designers, fabs, process people.
>
>ST did not spend enough. Like memory chips, if you come in a notch lower
>than the competition, you wasted everything you spent.
>
>The T9000 was late - very late - very very late. And an order of
>magnitude too slow, I think because they played second fiddle in process
>development. They were expecting another layer of metal, and didn't get it.
>
>Cheers,      Andy!
>

It seemed to me like the All eggs in one basket situation. Am I wrong in
thinking that Inmos would have been better introducing their upgrades in
stages? Evolution not revolution. The H1 promised so much in one go and
never delivered. Intel on the other hand kept ramping up the clock speed
then bringing out extra features as the market could take it. Surely Intel
could have skipped an incarnation but they adjusted delivery dates and
prices to suit themselves. I know that they had a far greater market and
that chip design is expensive but surely Imnos should have followed the
same technique. Isn't this borne out by the relative success of later
uprated T4s and T8s?

NewsMan