Sun spurns Mips for Cyrix chips

The race to provide cheaper terminals with full Internet capabilities went one step further last week as Sun said it will release an x.86-based Java terminal later this year.

The machine is likely to cost around the #1,000 mark and Sun said it had chosen a Cyrix processor rather than its own Sparc Mips chips because it would take less time to bring it to market.

Although Sun wants to create a special chip called Micro Java that is unlikely to leave its fabrication plants until year end at the earliest.

And although the market for the terminals is likely to start slowly, Sun anticipates it will heat up during 1997.

Meanwhile it emerged that Oracle has asked several manufacturers to bid for production of its NC terminal which is now unlikely to see the light of day before September.

Although CEO Larry Ellison still insists it will be a sub-$500 device, it will include 4Mb of memory, which will make it much harder for any company to produce the box.