Despite its new concentration on the just launched 3000 Series based on Intel iAPX-86 family chips, NCR Corp is not abandoning its Tower customers altogether, and it is claiming that its brand new Tower 32/750 and new versions of the 32/825 and 32/850 are among the first 68040 systems to come on the market. NCR also claims that the 68040 versions will be twice as powerful as typical 68030-based systems, quoting benchmarks run by Neal Nelson & Associates. The single-processor 32/750 should support up to 128 users, while the 32/825 and 32/850 are multi-processors using from two to six 68040s and numerous terminal and file processors connected via Multibus II. The 825 supports 256 users, while the 850 supports up to 512. The operating syst-em is Unix System V.3.2 rather than the System V.4 implementation on the 3000 range. Existing 32/700 and 32/800 users will be able to upgrade via board swaps. Recompilation of applications, although not necessary, will improve performance further, says NCR. Just how available the new models are at present is not clear – at least one 68040 vendor at Unix Expo was sceptical that Motorola had yet succeeded in ironing out the far from trivial problems that have delayed the 68040 up until now.
