60 MB Tapes (was Re: AT&T 630 "dmd"... )

[Len Rose]

One can _easily_ install the 60 meg and 120 meg tape drives, and
any other scsi peripheral on any 310/400 .. If you bemoan the fact
that you can't read the newer tape formats, simply upgrade to SCSI
and obtain one of the AT&T tape packages..

With a 3B2/400 running at 14 mhz, the only lack is ram... 4 meg
just doesn't seem to be enough nowdays, especially with starlan,rfs,
and or serious applications.

I suspect it won't be long until we start seeing 500's and 600's
pretty cheap on the used equipment market.

I like to hear people saying that X is old and slow compared to the
new X.. If it does the job for you, it's still quite valuable. One
has to look at the replacement costs too.. Since the 3B2 family is
binary compatible, it'll be quite some time before we retire 310's
and 400's .. A maxed out 400,still beats the pants of any 386 machine
we have seen yet.. The loading factors,number of users, and heavy 
serial i/o (as in blazers) consistently prove the 3B2 family a winner.

We have a machine here with 3 blazers and a couple 2400 baud modems,
and with all lines going full blast, we don't even notice a bit.. This
is on eports of course,but hpp boards are just as solid.. I can bring
a 386 down (as in crash) by catting a long text file at the console.
It's a world of difference between the two classes of machines.. I
just pity someone who has been sold on the premise that they can
replace the 3B2 with a 386..

I recommend everyone to get a 386 and plug it into starlan and or
ethernet, but for god's sake don't sell your 3B2's :-)