Sequent Computer Systems Inc is set to announce its long-awaited Intel 80486-based Symmetry CPU in January 1991, with volume shipments scheduled for the second half of the year. It is unclear whether Sequent will reveal new machines based on the chip, but existing customers of its range of 80386-based uni-processor and multi-processor Symmetry systems will be able to upgrade to the 80486 part as soon as deliveries begin. Those using Sequent’s Dynix Unix operating system will be offered an upgrade to its Dynix/ptx environment, but customers that want to continue with the basic Dynix on 80486 systems will be able to do so. Sequent, whose Dynix/ptx multi-processing Unix implementation has been chosen by AT&T’s Unix System Labs as the prime development environment for System V.4 ES/MP – its secure, multi-processing version of Unix V.4, says that AT&T needed to go ahead with an interim multi-processing effort – System V.4 MP – before the ES/MP release, because early multi-processing Unix boxes from the likes of NCR Corp will need a multi-processing Unix implementation some time before ES/MP is ready. System V.4 MP will conform to the existing Unix V.4 Application Programming Interface, however System V.4 ES/MP will define a new API altogether. Speaking to our sister paper Unigram.X this week, Neal Waddington, Sequent’s vice-president of marketing, revealed that although the finished product will not contain the whole Dynix/ptx kernel, it is certain to incorporate a large part of it. Sequent, which still supplies its National Semiconductor NS32000-based Balance processor boards to Siemens AG – Siemens adds the cabinets and calls them the MX 500 range – was due to meet with the Mnchener yesterday to thrash out their future relationship. Siemens, which recently plumped for AT&T’s Unix V.4 in preference to OSF/1, has previously indicated that it will replace the National Semiconductor NS32323 chip which Sequent supplies, with the Intel 80486. Sequent would very much like to meet this requirement with its Symmetry series, and is also keen to get its Dynix/ptx Unix software on to Siemens boxes. Waddington nevertheless believes that the future of Nixdorf’s Pyramid-derived mid-range Targon systems, which clash with the MX 500, is assured for sometime to come. Sequent remains one of the few players in the industry that has yet to reveal a preference for any particular RISC chip, and although Waddington acknowledges that the firm has been looking at all the RISC options, including the Intel 80860 which is widely reckoned to be hard to work with, he maintains that there is no long-term advantage to RISC, and that Sequent will not do a RISC implementation unless there is a compelling reason to do so. On other issues Waddington, like a growing number of other industry-watchers, expects IBM to do an implementation of OS/2 on its RS/6000 AIX series in an attempt to rescue the operating systems from oblivion. Sequent, which is bullish about its financial performance for the whole year, is next week expected to report third quarter figures of around $67m, with earnings at around $0.25 per share.
