Fujitsu of Japan is the first IBMulator to respond directly to IBM’s new 9370s and has completed design of a new M-730. The new machine will come in four models rated by Fujitsu at 0.2 to 2 MIPS, and is expected to be priced to undercut the 9370s. Fujitsu has also responded to the IBM 3090E announcements with enhancements to its line-topping M-780. The number of channels supported has been doubled to 256, twice the new IBM maximum; and like its 48% affiliate Amdahl Corp, it has boosted the channel data rate to 4.5Mbytes per second, where IBM has not yet raised it from 3Mbytes per second using a new F8483H-11 High-Speed Transfer Facility option that costs $32,500 and is set for the end of April. A new F8489 built-in Channel Linking Facility is also optional at $12,987. The company has also come up with a new M-760 line to replace its old M-340 and M-360, and to create a fierce challenger for IBM’s 4381. The air-cooled line uses a single board processor and consists of seven models. They are the uniprocessor Model 4 at 3 MIPS, 6 at 5.5 MIPS, 8 at 8 MIPS, and 10 at 12 MIPS; and dyadic 20 at 18 MIPS, triadic 30 at 25 MIPS and quad 40 at 32 MIPS. The low-end models are set for July, the 10 and 20 for November and the 30 and 40 for the end of the year. The formal launch of the new machines is on March 3.
