Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!mtxinu!shore
From: shore@mtxinu.COM (Melinda Shore)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Yet Another Upgrade Anecdote
Message-ID: <1215@mtxinu.UUCP>
Date: 7 May 90 17:58:38 GMT
References: <43777@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu> <1161.263f4987@gp.govt.nz> <23254.26434102@ccavax.camb.com> <1990May6.133250.18193@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> <385@newave.UUCP>
Reply-To: shore@mtxinu.com (Melinda Shore)
Organization: mt Xinu, Berkeley
Lines: 17

In article <385@newave.UUCP> john@newave.mn.org (John A. Weeks III) writes:
>1. Shouldn't you be very happy that DEC offered a machine like the IIRC
>that was actually designed to sell for much more that what you were
>required to pay?

I do believe that this is looking at the situation backward.  This
practice makes it clear the extent to which DEC was overcharging for
the uVax II.  The difference in cost between the II and the RC was
several thousand dollars, yet DEC was able to sell RCs and make a 
profit on them.  At one site I was at we bought a *lot* of RCs, and
replaced the backplane in most of them for several hundred dollars
each.  Even though we were treated like an educational site and got
good (these things being relative) prices from DEC, it was still much
cheaper to buy extra parts to modify the RC than it was to buy the II.
-- 
Melinda Shore                             shore@mtxinu.com
mt Xinu                          ..!uunet!mtxinu.com!shore