NS32032 and UNIX

[sl at van-bc.UUCP]

In article <4936 at brl-smoke.ARPA> rbj at ICST-CMR.arpa writes:
>
>	I am looking for any information about any systems that run UNIX(tm)
>	on a National Semiconductor NS32032 processor.
>

National Semiconductor supports System V Release 2 & Release 3, under a joint
agreement with AT&T to do so for the NS32000 series.

One example of this is available directly from NSC or any distributor of their
products (Hamilton Avnet) in the ICM 3216 product line and the ICM 3232 product
line.

Briefly:

ICM 3216
	10 Mhz 32016 CPU, MPU, FPU
	4 MB of memory
	two serial ports with modem control
	two serial ports without modem control
	one parallel port for Centronics style printer
	SCSI port
	System V Release 2, with Paged Virtual Memory System
    
	$3395 ($1495 for educational institutions)

The above is implemented on two boards about 10"x11" requiring +5, +12, -12 
etc. You must add > 40MB SCSI compatible hard disk (~$2000), SCSI compatible 
9 track cartridge (~$1000), case and PS (~$400 - IBM PC AT clone case works
well). 

ICM 3232
	10 Mhz 32332 CPU, MPU, FPU, 2MB of memory
	32016 CPU, .5 MB of memory
	four serial ports
	one parallel port
	SCSI port
	System V Release 3, Page Virtual Memory System
	additional memory boards have 6MB
	
	$UNKOWN, product to be available early '87

Also available is an eight port serial card with a 32016 and .5MB of memory.


I used an ICM 3216 for about four months this summer. Subjectively speaking
it felt AT LEAST twice as fast as the 10 Mhz Callan 68010 system I'm typing
this on. This was probably due to the nice job NSC did on the Paged Virtual
Memory. Most benchmarks indicate that 68010 is slightly fast than a 32016 at 
the same clock speed. 

The System V port is very generic. NSC apparantly doesn't feel the need to 
differentiate their port from standard System V from AT&T. The only problem
I had was the lack of nroff due to the unbundling process that AT&T is 
following.

Inside reports from the Portland lab where the boards are being developed 
indicate that the new ICM 3232 product will be about twice as fast as the 
ICM 3216. 

In general if you don't mind putting this together you probably can't find
a much better price / performance ratio with any of the current products on
the market.  For the less intrepid there are some OEM's packaging the boards
and charging a lot more.


------------------------------------------------------------------------
Stuart Lynne  	Public Access Un*x - Vancouver BC 	
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