The march of RISC technology continues, and Convex Computer Corp is now said to be considering the 64-bit MIPS Computer Systems Inc R4000 RISC as the basis for the follow-on to its new C3400 mid-range machine as an alternative to developing the C3400 processor further. According to Electronic News, the Richardson, Texas-based minisupercomputer builder has two projects running in parallel, one a develop-ment of the C3400, the other, code-named Medusa, using up to 56 R4000 processors, and both now look likely to deliver about the same performance when they are ready to ship sometime in 1993. The company had been planning to wind up the 50Mhz clock on the C3400 to around 100MHz, but is said to have abandoned that idea, although other enhancements are in the works for the new machine. The RISC family would be a companion product line to the C-series and would not be binary-compatible, although it is expected to have a slot for a C3400 processor. The prime future of the C-series is seen to lie in future iterations of the top-end Gallium Arsenide C3800.
