3/80 and 4/60 prices

[Liudvikas Bukys]

In article <792 at rex.cs.tulane.edu> mb at rex.cs.tulane.edu (Mark Benard) writes:
>X-Sun-Spots-Digest: Volume 7, Issue 280, message 17 of 18
>...
>The 3/80 is priced at $5995 with 4 MB, with an additional 4 MB costing
>$2000.  That makes an 8 MB 3 MIP 3/80 just $1000 less than a 8 MB 12.5 MIP
>4/60 (aka SPARCstation 1).  So unless someone is out there selling 4 MB
>expansion memory for the 3/80 for a lot less than $2000, it looks like the
>SPARCstation is a much better deal.

In fact, my most recent newsletter from Shearson-Lehman-Hutton says that
SUN has told them that production costs for the 3/80 and 4/60 are the
SAME, and that they expect volume production of the 4/60 ASICs to make the
SPARCstation even cheaper to manufacture in the future.  Reportedly,
despite the pretty low price on the SPARCstation 1, their gross margins
are still pretty comfortable.

Liudvikas Bukys
<bukys at cs.rochester.edu>