SPHERICAL SOLUTIONS ANNOUNCES AVAILABILITY OF THE PYRO 50MHZ ACCELERATOR BOARD FOR NEXT 25 MHZ COMPUTERS.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE For more information please contact:

Samuel M. Goldberger, President Spherical Solutions 47 Myrtle Avenue Mill Valley, CA 94941 415-383-2919--voice 415-381-9556--fax smg@orb.com--email

May 4, 1995

Spherical Solutions is pleased to annouce the availability of its "Pyro(TM) 50 mhz Accelerator Board" for all 25 mhz Motorola 68040-based NeXT hardware, including the Cube, NeXT Station and NeXT Station Color. Manufactured to Spherical's specifications by Newer Technology, one of the leading designers and manufacturers of accelerator products for the Apple Macintosh (tm) line, the Pyro effectively doubles the processing power of the original NeXT computer.

Spherical's President, Sam Goldberger, says, "Many NextStep users love the original "black" NeXT hardware, because of the reliability, quality, appearance and the range of applications available, some of which haven't been ported to non-Motorola machines (Improv, WriteNow, etc.) Moreover, many users have made significant investments in their hardware and want to derive maximum value. But they want to maximize performance of their machines at a reasonable price. This is why we designed the Pyro."

"It Just Works"

The Pyro is a small daugherboard that plugs into the existing '040 socket on the NeXT motherboard. It contains a 50 mhz '040 chip with integral cooling fan and support circuitry. No additional software is required, and there are no known incompatibilities with the operating system or any tested application. All other features and ports (DSP, printer and serial ports, ethernet, etc) operate normally. "It just works," says Goldberger. Different models of the Pyro are designed to operate with both Cube and Station configurations.

Say Goldberger, "We've tested the Pyro against the 33 mhz Turbo and even the famous 'Nitro' 40 mhz board (which never became commercial production). Pyro significantly outperforms the Turbo in most measures, and is essentially the equal of the Nitro. Moreover, the Nitro was only designed for Turbo machines, leaving the 25 mhz user without an upgrade path."

He continued, "We selected Newer Technology to design and manufacture the Pyro because of their excellent track record in the Macintosh market, their outstanding and reliable product line, and their depth of engineering expertise, particularly with the Motorola CPU. We are delighted with the product and documentation they have produced, their warranty program, and their commitment to the Next marketplace." Research is currently underway into an accelerator board for Turbo machines.

Test Results

A series of tests have been performed to compare the performance of the Pyro board to the unmodified 25 mhz Next, the Turbo and the Nitro. Tests included both standard benchmarks and a suite of real-world applications. Results are available over the Internet from the Pyro Web Page:

http://orb.com/Pyro

or by ftp from

ftp://ftp.cs.orst.edu/software/NeXT/documents/Pyro.test.ps

Availability and Pricing

Spherical Solutions is the exclusive reseller of the Pyro board on behalf of Newer Technolgies, Inc.. It is available directly to end users, and is warranteed for one year by Newer Technology, Inc. Reseller inquiries are welcome, and should be addressed to Spherical Solutions.

Introductory pricing for the Pyro 50 mhz Accelerator Board is $899 for all platforms. Orders are currently being accepted for delivery beginning May 20, 1995.

For further information and ordering information, please contact:

Samuel M. Goldberger Spherical Solutions 47 Myrtle Avenue Mill Valley, CA 94941 415-383-2919--voice 415-381-9556--fax

smg@orb.com--email

Spherical Solutions has been in the business of supplying Next hardware and software solutions to the Next community since 1991.

*** Pyro 50 mhz Accelerator Board is a trademark of Newer Technology. All other trademarks mentioned belong to their respective owners.