Suns at Home?

[Tom Perrine]

This is partially in response to Bob Powell' recent request for info about
the viability of Suns at home.

I realize this is anathema to all of us Sun-fanatics, but I think it is
important for perspective.

I too am looking at Suns for personal use. (My wife and I are both rather
spoiled, I have a Sun-3/260 at work and she uses Suns and Symbolics Lisp
machines at work. We also refuse to let our children grow up in an MS-DOS
world!!)

We have been looking for a way to get decent computing at home for over 4
years. Multi-tasking and windows are the primary requirements.  We would
really like to have Multics :-), but would be happy to live with UNIX.

Here are some of the things I am currently tracking:

Our *short-term* solution was to buy an Amiga for the house. It has color,
a multi-tasking operating system, and most UNIX software (non-graphics) is
an easy port. A graphics program is a medium-level port, depending on the
complexity, dependence on SunView oddities, etc. There is lots of PD
support from a gazillion other UNIX people on the net who couldn't afford
UNIX-at-home just yet. (comp.sys.amiga, etc.)

My home machine runs UUCP, mail and (soon) news. Hard drive *strongly*
recommended :-).

An Amiga 2000 can be had for $3-$5K depending on memory and hard-drive
sizes. A friend just added a 68030 with 6Mbytes or 32-bit-wide RAM and an
80Mbytes SCSI hard drive to his Amiga 2000.

The Amiga 3000 (68030, 4 or 6 Meg RAM and 300 Mbyte drive) has been
announced, due to start selling in March. This will be a UNIX System V R4
box.

Or, consider this alternative: 25 or 33 Mhz '386 PC -clone, running SCO
UNIX System V R3 + X-windows on a VGA monitor. ESDI disk are available, or
SCSI. Hardware costs about $2K-$3K, SW cost about $1K (but its
SUPPORTED!!). There are several machine is the San Diego area that are
running FULL newsfeeds on just such a machine.

I have heard from some people at UC San Diego that Sun-2/120s are the
"machine of choice" for home use if you really want one. Several people
have posted lists of companies that buy/sell used Sun equipment. There is
some controversy about the transferability of the "right to use" license,
however.

Another option might be one of the reconditioned 3/50s or 3/60s that Sun
has, due to their big trade-in a while back. Call the local Sun office.

Sorry to bring up the A-word and the P-word, but somebody had to. An Amiga
isn't a 3/260 or a Sparcstation, but you can afford it *now*.

Tom Perrine (tep)
Logicon (Tactical and Training Systems Division) San Diego CA (619) 455-1330
Internet: tots!tep at LOGICON.ARPA		GENIE: T.PERRINE
UUCP: nosc!hamachi!tots!tep -or- sun!suntan!tots!tep