The most significant computer industry announcement of the 1990s takes place today – at least that is how Digital Equipment Corp views launch of the ACE Advanced Computing Environment, which it reckons is more comprehensive than Sun Microsystems Inc’s Sparc strategy. Tandem Computers Inc, steelmaker Nippon Kokan KK, also known as NKK Corp, which bought 5% of Silicon Graphics Inc last year, Sumitomo Electric Corp and Acer Group are among the names not so far identified as backers of the ACE consortium, which as well as Compaq Computer Corp, MIPS Computer Systems Inc, Microsoft Corp and Santa Cruz Operation Inc includes Control Data Corp, Groupe Bull SA, NEC Corp, Ing C Olivetti & Co SpA, Prime Computer Inc, Silicon Graphics, Sony Corp and Wang Laboratories Inc. Another three companies are expected to stick their heads above the parapet at today’s announcement. Biggest question about the ACE strategy is what the operating system will be, and the answer is that the first to be available will give DEC a head start by being binary code-compatible with the Ultrix that DEC runs on its MIPStations, only source code-compatible with Santa Cruz Operation Inc Unix System V.386, the Open Software Foundation’s OSF/1, and Unix System V – it will be compatible with the System V Interface Definition version 2. It will take the SCO Open Desktop name, and standard components will include Motif, X Window, the Open Software Foundation’s Distributed Computing Environment, TCP/IP, Sun’s Network File System, Ingres SQL, LAN Manager client and MS-DOS compatibility mode. DEC can be expected to chortle, because the new Open Desktop will be based on the OSF/1 releases the Maynarder had planned over the next 18 months. It will be distributed by Santa Cruz. While the market gets to grips with that, Microsoft will be pulling out all the stops to complete OS/2 3.0, also called New Technology, which will support Windows 3.0, MS-DOS and OS/2 applications as well as new 32-bit Windows applications. It will include a 32-bit multi-tasking kernel, symmetric multiprocessing support. It will also have integrated networking, in an effort no doubt to put the boot into Novell Inc’s NetWare, which may be the reason Novell Inc is now the biggest single outside shareholder in Unix System Laboratories Inc. As expected, the hardware will be built around the 64-bit R4000 RISC from MIPS, and will use the little-endian byte-ordering used in DEC’s VAX, its MIPStations and in Intel Corp iAPX-86 family chips – these guys want to pick up the entire base of MS-DOS applications. Both the new operating systems will run on iAPX-86 personal computers as well as the ACE hard ware. Developer kits for both operating systems are promised for both environments by the end of this year with end-user versions to ship in mid-1992. On the hardware front, the bus issue has been sett led by giving developers the option of using either the EISA bus or DEC’s Turbochannel.
