How does the ACE definition of an "advanced computing environment" relate to the realities of today's computing environments? From
June 1991
Microbytes comes Andy Reinhar
dt's report:
Will ACE Become King of the Workstations?
by Andy Reinhardt
A group of 21 major computer and software companies--led by Compaq, Microsoft, Mips Computer Systems, DEC, and The Santa Cruz Operation--has publicly revealed its intention to develop a set of specifications meant to define an "advanced computing environment" for the 1990s and beyond. Despite the big names, it's too early to determine what ACE will really mean to computer users and buyers. The group is still working on its technical specifications, and resultant products are 12 to 18 months away. Besides the headlining quintet, the other ACE members are Acer, Control Data, Kobuta, NEC, NKK, Olivetti, Prime, Pyramid, Siemens Nixdorf Informationssystemes, Silicon Graphics, Sony, Sumitomo, Tandem, Wang, and Zenith Data Systems.
The ACE group proposes that computer systems be based on the Intel 386/i486 architecture and the upcoming Mips R4000 64-bit RISC CPU. ACE machines will run either OS/2
3.0 (the "New Technology" version being developed by Microsoft) or SCO Unix (with the Open Desktop interface).
So far, the group has divulged only two relevant technical developments: a definition of a standard implementation for the Mips RISC CPU, which will be used by Compaq and others in new uniprocessing and multiprocessing systems (no sooner than 1992), and the first announced port of OS/2 to a non-Intel platform.
The ACE group has released few details about its Advanced RISC Computing specification, the part of ACE that defines binary compatibility for Mips machines. And none of the companies has said what kinds of capabilities or features might be typical of ACE machines-not even what size and shape they might take; nor have they ventured even approximate pricing.
The only major detail revealed was, however, of huge importance, especially in political terms: ACE will specify that compliant systems use a "little-endian" byte order, which is the one Intel chips use. Microsoft chairman Bill
Gates said that adhering to the same byte order would simplify the interchange of data between Intel- and Mips-based machines and would make it easier to port applications from one machine to another.
Only DEC currently uses Mips chips in their little-endian mode; all the other Mips users use big-endian byte ordering, which means that their systems will not comply with ACE. This, plus some Mips customers' desire to support Unix System V release 4 rather than SCO Unix, has already resulted in the emergence of a dissenting faction within ACE. This "Apache Group," which includes seven ACE members, has something going for it: On the same day as the ACE announcement, Unix Systems Laboratory (USL) revealed its effort to standardize Mips-based systems operating under SVR4.
Systems companies, including DEC, Silicon Graphics, NEC, Prime, and Tandem, have used Mips processors (R2000 and R3000) in incompatible designs. The different Mips-based systems lack a standard-applications binary interface, which would
let software run unmodified across them. ACE and USL (like 88open and SPARC International) are both now proposing to supply the means by bringing "shrink-wrapped" compatibility to RISC workstations. The ACE environment would do that job for Mips chips.
Here's one angle of the ACE plan that holds the greatest promise for users and developers alike. Since OS/2 3.0 and SCO Unix will run on both the Intel and Mips chips, the ACE group says that it will be easier to construct mixed networks of DOS, Windows, OS/2, and Unix machines than by using competing choices. Software developers (and end users) will gain the benefits of binary compatibility across multiple implementations of the Mips processor within a given operating system.
ACE says that it will offer near-compatibility across different hardware platforms within a given operating system. This means that Windows and OS/2 applications will be able to run with a simple recompilation by the developer on either the Intel- or Mips-based systems, and the
same will hold true for Unix applications on either hardware platform. Thus, the promise goes, customers may be able to buy a single box of shrinkwrapped software that contains two ready-to-go versions of the same application.
However, users and developers will still face incompatibilities between OS/2 and Unix, even on the same hardware. The ACE group did not announce any plans to release tools or libraries to facilitate porting applications between the two operating systems.
At this point, ACE is primarily a political action: the establishment of a new group of companies, many of them competitors, banding together to challenge the power of Sun Microsystems and, to a lesser degree, Intel, IBM, and HewlettPackard. For Compaq, it's also a business strategy for moving beyond commodity PCs into RISC workstations. The ultimate deciding factor in ACE's fortunes will be user acceptance and perception of the new systems, based on their price/performance, the features they include, and adherence to whateve
r standards are prevalent in 1992.
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