New storage technology, ThinkPads from IBM

New storage technology, ThinkPads from IBM

By Zatni Arbi

JAKARTA (JP): For many years, Big Blue (IBM) has been among
the contributors to the Olympic Games. This year, it is supplying
its technology and solutions in an effort to make the 1996
Atlanta Olympic Games the most efficient and accessible games to
date. In line with this, from now until October, visitors to the
Inforum -- the Atlanta Committee of Olympic Games headquarters --
can view and learn about all the equipment that IBM is deploying
for the event. The exhibition is called the "IBM Olympic
Information Technology Showcase."

An exhibition of actual solutions such as this is always a
great idea, since visitors can look at and see for themselves
what technologies they may adopt to meet the needs of their own
business organizations.

Specifically, for the upcoming Olympic games, IBM has
developed four major solutions. First, there will be the Results
Systems, which will track scores and statistics for 271 events at
31 separate venues. Second, there will be the Info *96 System,
which provides instant logistical, factual and biographical data
to accredited guests. Then there is the Games Management System
(what a choice of name!), which consists of a group of
sophisticated, interconnected applications that manages entire
events. And there will also be the 1996 Centennial Olympic Games
Web Server, the first official home page for the Olympic Games.
With the new home page, web surfers will be able to have instant
access to real-time results as well as pictures, graphics, and
Olympic Games facts.

In addition, there will also be a virtual reality project and
a Lotus Notes-based Incident Tracking System. The former is an
application that features an IBM 3-D Interaction Accelerator that
will enable real-time visualization and a "tour" of the venues.
The latter is supposed to help enhance Games security by
tracking, monitoring and coordinating responses to security
incidents.

So, if you happen to be in Atlanta within the next five months
and want to find out how IBM's technologies might help your
business, just drop by. In the meantime, here are some new
products from this computer giant that you might like to know
about.

SSA for SCSI

Talk about the highest performance you'd want from a storage
subsystem, and you'll unavoidably find yourself talking about the
SCSI interface. As I already discussed some time ago, the
technology has grown more mature, and we're beginning to see PCs
with fast and wide SCSI implementation on the market.

Yet, like most other mature technologies in the computer
industry, SCSI will soon have a strong contender: The Serial
Storage Architecture, or SSA. Pioneered by IBM, the new
architecture is now being offered to RS 6000 machines. However,
as Julia Lee from IBM's Storage Division informed me last week,
we will soon see its implementation on the PC platform as well.

What are the advantages? To begin with, with two data paths
between any two nodes, SSA offers a higher bandwidth -- the
maximum being 20 MBps. You can also connect up to 127 devices in
a single loop, which far exceeds SCSI. In addition, you also have
a flexible loop connectivity that theoretically will give you the
ability to connect up to two million devices to your system.

I was also informed that it would be possible for an SSA-based
storage device to be accessed by more than one CPU. That's
something new. Normally, we have one CPU with the capability of
accessing a multiple storage device. Now it will be the other way
around. It means that copies of the same data won't have to be
stored in different places and this, in turn, will also eliminate
the task of synchronization (making sure that all copies are the
most current).

Then there are other additional features, such as hot
pluggability, which is actually already available in a RAID
subsystem. But the next advantage is perhaps a boon to the
network manager: The link between one device and another can be
as long as 25 meters, and the connection uses only a shielded
twisted pair cable. These features are clearly more flexible than
SCSI.

SSA has been recognized by leading computer and peripheral
companies, including Adaptec, Fujitsu, and Siemens Nixdorf.
Because of the level of flexibility and performance that it
promises, we really have to stay tuned for more news about SSA.

New ThinkPads

IBM's notebooks, called ThinkPads, may not be selling like hot
cakes here in Jakarta, but they definitely have solid quality and
bear reasonable price tags. A new generation of entry-level
ThinkPads are based on the Cyrix processors, which IBM
manufactures in its own facility. The Cyrix MISC 100 MHz chip is
positioned to compete with the Intel 75 MHz Pentium, so a
ThinkPad using this CPU is supposed to perform as well as my
newly acquired Toshiba Satellite 100CS. I was told that one of
the reasons for using the Cyrix processor is their price, which
is much lower than that of the Intel Pentium, and this is going
to be reflected in the amount of money a user will have to pay.
Unfortunately, as these models have just been launched here, no
pricing is available yet.

The Cyrix-based ThinkPads come with an ISA bus. Other features
that the Satellite 100CS boasts can also be found in ThinkPads
365E and 365ED, including two Type II (equivalent to one Type
III) PC Card slots, a TrackPoint III pointing device, a 540 MB
hard disk, 8 MB RAM, and a 10.4" dual scan screen (there's also a
365E that comes equipped with a TFT screen). The ThinkPad 365ED
comes with a built-in CD-ROM drive, and therefore an external
disk drive. It also comes with a built-in SoundBlaster Pro-
compatible sound card. Surprisingly, the CD-ROM equipped model
comes only with a dual scan display.

There's another thing that surprises me: IBM has not
redesigned the keyboard of ThinkPad 365, despite the fact that
most other new notebooks now have wrist supports on the bottom of
their keyboards. IBM does offer a port replicator for these
models, which will give us the wrist support. Still another
surprise is that these ThinkPads still do not use EDO RAM.

For those who are too Intel-fanatic to use processors from any
other vendor, IBM offers ThinkPads 365X and 365XD. These
notebooks use Intel 100 MHz Pentium chips, and come with a 810 MB
hard disk, a 10.4" dual scan SVGA display, 16-bit sound
capability, speaker and microphone. The 365XD, as the name
indicates, comes with a CD ROM drive. A 120 MHz version of the
365XD has a 11.3" dual scan SVGA screen and a 1 GB hard disk. By
the way, all of the new ThinkPads are already equipped with an
infrared port.

From time to time, I have referred to the ThinkPad 760 series
as the ultimate in notebook computing, hoping that one day I
would be able to conduct a hands-on test on this much-raved-about
desktop power for the road. However, PT USI Jaya, IBM's agent for
Indonesia, has been unable to provide me with a demo unit, so I
can only talk about it from what I've read in computer magazines.

Yet, before I got the chance to really play around with this
expensive notebook, its new siblings have arrived, four of them
altogether: ThinkPads 760E, 760ED, 760 EL, and 760ELD. Like the
365 Series, they were all launched here last week. The ThinkPad
760ED has the most features in this class. You can choose from
Intel 100 MHz, 120 MHz, or 133 MHz Pentium processors.

All of them have a gorgeous 12.1" TFT black active matrix
display, sound capability with built-in stereo speakers and
microphone, wrist support, TrackPoint III, and a keyboard that
tilts up when opened. They also use EDO RAM, using a Dual in-line
memory module, or DIMM.

The ones with the L in their names carry lower price tags,
because, among other things, they don't have the L2 cache. That's
a surprising omission, since, as we all know, the performance of
a Pentium system is significantly affected by absence or presence
of the L2 cache. No doubt about it, the L series is targeted to
those who still have "some" limitation in their budget.

PT USI Jaya has promised to let me test-drive one of these
high-end notebooks as soon as they can get hold of an extra demo
unit. Hopefully, then, I will be able to provide you with a more
specific account of this dream portable machine.