Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!apple!bionet!agate!eos!riacs!dlg
From: dlg@riacs.edu (David L. Gehrt)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sequent
Subject: Re: Acquired used Sequent B8K parts; Recommendations sought.
Message-ID: <1559@hydra.riacs.edu>
Date: 23 Jun 89 15:54:59 GMT
References: <12155@grebyn.com>
Reply-To: dlg@hydra.riacs.edu.UUCP (David L. Gehrt)
Organization: Research Institute for Advanced Computer Science
Lines: 38

In article <12155@grebyn.com> karl@grebyn.com (Karl Nyberg) writes:

>since I'm not really into Sequents, would I be better off selling the whole
>or parts and getting out?  (I asked that question in a roundabout way in
>misc.forsale.)  The system is about four years old.  Ad-THANKS-vance.
>
>-- Karl --
>-- 
>Karl A. Nyberg		karl@grebyn.com, nyberg@ajpo.sei.cmu.edu
>Grebyn Corporation		   karl%grebyn.com@haven.umd.edu
>P. O. Box 497			      {decuac,haven}!grebyn!karl
>Vienna, VA 22183-0497				    703-281-2194


The Balance architecture has been supplanted by the Symmetry, and spare
Balance processor boards have been going at fire sale prices.  This will hurt
the value on the used market for the parts.  But there are still Balances out
there, in fact we are still using a couple of Balances.  They are very
reliable general purpose computers the per processor speed will not knock your
socks off, but with 6 (5 :-) there are a lot of cycles available.  Our first
Balance, an 8K, came with a couple of 72 MB Fujis (?)  on the SCSI, and they
were just OK.  (Better than no disks at all.)

The answer to your question depends on the use for the thing if it were
reactivated.  It would be a little pricey as a PC replacement, but if you
need to serve up cycles for general users, text editing, compiling etc. or for
parallel work, it would be fine.  If this is the way you want to go, and have
the bucks you probably want to hang a multibus SMD controller onit and perhaps
an old eagle or two or similar drive on it. Add a 16MB memory card and you
would have a system that would support a bunch of users on the cheap.

Good Luck!

dave

Internet:	dlg@riacs.edu
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