Amiga 3000UX, X, OpenLook, Motif, Color, A2410, Etc. (somewhat long)

[James A. Crotinger]

eachus at aries.mitre.org (Robert I. Eachus) writes:
> (integer) speed, but most of the people at MITRE do mostly text
> processing, and for this the Amiga (with 8 Meg at least for emacs on X
> :-), is faster than most of the SPARCstations.  Flipping instantly
> between screens instead of rooting through windows is easy to get
> addicted to (and actually makes smaller displays preferable).

  Huh? I haven't used an A3000UX, but my experience is that emacs
seems infinitely faster on Sun 4's (sparcs) than on the Sun 3/80 I
used to have (which, I believe, uses a 20 MHz '030). And this "smaller
displays preferable" stuff sounds like Hamburger B syndrome.  8-).

>    Therefore, when I said what is quoted above, It was refering to the
>    cost of adding a 040 board, a 34010 board, a 16-17" monitor, and a
>    few other bells and whistles.

>    All these are available or are in the pipe, and modulo what I said
> above about large displays, I expect that such a machine will list for
> about what a color SPARCstation does.  (But no one will pay list for
> either.)

  But doesn't this bother you. The sparc has a lot more horsepower
than an A3000UX, so the A3000UX with similar display hardware ought to
be quite a bit cheaper in order to compete. (And, as I mentioned in an
earlier message, Sun's discount pricing seems much more aggressive
than CBM's, with 40% discounts for large institutions.)

>    As I said, the market they are playing in seems to have a "real"
> prices in the $5 to $10K range.  By going third party for disks and
> memory, I can set up a color SPARCstation for about $15K.  (Flame
> retardant: The system hardware is less than half of that, additional
> network plant adds about $1 to 2K and the rest is software.)  If I can
> get a comparable Amiga with Unix for less than $10K, I'm happy.  For
> $15K I expect that I will be able to get the system you describe
> above.  (Again, less than $10K for hardware...)

  I guess I'm missing something. Sun's IPC *lists* for $10K (our
price, $6K) and is every bit as complete as the A3000UX, coming with
16" color monitor, ethernet, 200 Meg hard drive, 8 Meg ram, SunOS 4.1
and OpenWindows (which includes a lot of stuff that CBM's OPEN LOOK
software doesn't have). What additional software do you have to buy
for this that you wouldn't have to buy for the Amiga? (And is the
software you want even available on the Amiga).

  If you don't want color, Sun's SLC *lists* for $5K (but you do need
to get a disk and software for it if you want to run it standalone).
That certainly is cheaper than the A3000UX + A2024.

  Furthermore, the IPC is more-or-less "plug and play". The software
is preinstalled.  You turn it on, answer some questions, create
yourself an account, and you're ready to go. There is room for
improvement, however, since Sun doesn't currently have any graphically
oriented sysadmin tools for non-UNIX experts. (Does the Amiga?)

>    I don't think I'll ever see a Unix workstation with a real cost
> below $5000, but the Amiga does come close.

  Why? I predict that Sun or some Sparc clone will have such a beast
in 1-2 years.

> I don't count the low end
> SPARCstations, because the initial cost is sky high. They only
> compete when you already have an active Sun network.  you might be
> able to put together a ten box system for under $10K per seat, but
> quantity one will kill you.

  Why do you say this? What do you need that isn't included with Sun's IPC?

--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
James A. Crotinger     Lawrence Livermore Natl Lab // The above views 
jac at moonshine.llnl.gov P.O. Box 808;  L-630    \\ // are mine and are not 
(415) 422-0259         Livermore CA  94550      \\/ necessarily those of LLNL