After 30 years of slavishly following IBM Corp’s every step, the mainframe arm of Siemens Nixdorf Informationssysteme AG has finally taken a step to cut the apron strings and strike out on its own (CI No 2,842). The Siemens 7.500 series mainframes are derived from old RCA Spectra 70 licences and the Spectra 70 was copied from the IBM 360. Siemens has kept the architecture in step with IBM’s System 370 and System 390 so that in the past several years, it has been able to top off its line with IBMulators from Fujitsu Ltd, simply microcoded to run the BS2000 operating system, which experts characterise as more like the old OS/VS1 than MVS, although Siemens has progressively added MVS features. Despite its machines being incompatible, Siemens has echoed every innovation IBM has introduced in its line a few months later. Finally emancipated, it has decided the Tandem Computers Inc model, converting the proprietary operating system to run on machines built around high-end MIPS Technologies Inc R- series RISC microprocessors, is a better bet than IBM’s less- than-convincing Parallel Sysplex concept. Plans, first hinted at a year ago (CI No 2,590), to implement BS2000 for the R10000, have now been firmed up, and when Siemens Nixdorf’s current OEM agreement with Fujitsu for microcoded mainframe processors runs out, it will not be renewed. The first machine, due in about 12 months, will be a 10 MIPS affair using a 250MHz R4400 in BiCMOS. It’s already up in the labs. Models in the 100 MIPS range are promised by 2000. Siemens Nixdorf will also support Unix on the new machines – variants will presumably any way appear in its RM Unix line – and they will have firmware assists to enable BS2000 users to carry over their mainframe peripherals. These will be needed because to start with, data will need to be converted to new formats on the fly. Siemens has been bes’ friends with Fujitsu since the latter’s incorporation, but the new strategy marks a parting of the ways in main stream computing because Fujitsu has hung its hat on the Sparc RISC. Siemens Nixdorf is expected to continue to market the Fujitsu VP and VPP supercomputers, and to buy some peripherals.
