A group of twelve companies will be first to begin producing the much talked about NCI network computer (NC). The announcement was made by Larry Ellison, chief executive officer of Oracle Corporation [NASDAQ:ORCL], during the new system's launch, at Oracle Open World in Tokyo. Among the makers, seven had machines on display at the show.

Funai Electric, and Digital Equipment Corp., Philips Electronics, Japan's Akai and Uniden, and Britain's Acorn all had products on display. The Funai NCs, and the Digital NCs are covered in separate articles.

Akai Electric is aiming its initial NC client at the home market. The set-top box type unit can be controlled by a remote control or wireless keyboard. At its heart is the ARM7500 40-megahertz (MHz) microprocessor, eight megabytes (MB) of memory, slots for the user ID smart card and a ROM PC-Card. It plugs directly into the video input of an NTSC-standard television or a VGA/SVGA monitor. A 33.6-kilobits per second (kbps) modem is fitted, and a version with an Ethernet adapter is also available.

The Acorn Corporate, and Home NC clients are based on the same ARM7500 40-MHz microprocessor as Akai's machine, and other technical aspects are similar. Both are intended to be used with a keyboard and mouse. The company also said it will offer versions with ISDN and ATM (25.6-megabits per second) network interfaces, in addition to versions with a 10Base-T Ethernet and 28.8- kbps modem.

Accton was showing clients based on the Intel Pentium and AMD K5 microprocessors. The Intel version is available with 75 to 200MHz processors and the AMD version with 75 to 166MHz chips. The basic network connection is 10Base-T Ethernet.

Proton's machines come in three versions, a set-top box, a 27-inch television set with built-in NC, or as a desktop box for business. The first-two are based on the ARM 7500FE 40-MHz processor and the business version has a higher power Strong ARM 233-MHz processor installed. Memory is a basic 4MB in the home models and 8MB in the business versions. The business version also includes a Zip drive.

Two other manufacturers, Philips Electronics and Uniden, were offering NC clients but had no spokespeople or information available. The Philips device is said to have a CD-ROM drive, and Uniden's two machines includes a NC client notebook style computer and professional office-style telephone and integrated NC.

In his keynote speech, Oracle's Ellison also named RCA, Zenith and Aranex as NC client manufacturers. Fuji Electric announced at the show that it will also begin producing them.

Source: Newsbytes