Sony Corp has come out with its first workstation built around aMIPS Computer Systems Inc RISC microprocessor in Japan. Based on the R3000 RISC, the NWS-3800 series is rated at 12 MIPS, and the price, equivalent to $28,500, is very low for the Japanese market. The machine, which includes the R3100 floating point co-processor and a 68030 input-output processor, is claimed to be compatible with the existing NEWS series. There are two mod els, the NWS-3860 with 640Mb hard disk and 150Mb streamer built in, and the the NWS-3840 with a 264Mb hard disk. Both have as standard an audio interface and can record and replay pulse-code modulated sound. Sony also has a new entry- level model for the 68030 line, the NWS-1400 series, rated at 3.9 MIPS. Ship ments of that start in Dec ember in Japan, costing the equivalent of $8,900. Sony looks to sell 3,000 of the RISC models and 10,000 of the NWS-1400 by March 1991.
