Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!samsung!xylogics!world!bzs From: bzs@world.std.com (Barry Shein) Newsgroups: comp.arch Subject: Re: 386 machines are workstations? (Sun/386i) Message-ID: Date: 26 May 90 00:15:18 GMT References: <634@sibyl.eleceng.ua.OZ> <6326@scolex.sco.COM> <638@sibyl.eleceng.ua.OZ> <3383@auspex.auspex.com> Sender: bzs@world.std.com (Barry Shein) Organization: The World Lines: 43 In-Reply-To: guy@auspex.auspex.com's message of 25 May 90 02:28:30 GMT Re: Sun/386i As I remember what a lot of folks who complained about the 386i as not being "snappy" really meant was that the WINDOW SYSTEM seemed sluggish. It's obvious why that affects people's impressions of the whole machine. The problem with the window stuff was that just about everything went thru a layer to byte-swap as the 386 had a different byte-order than the 68k (and SPARC for that matter.) Rather than change the upper layers of the window system (#ifdef BYTESWAP) the swapping was inserted down below. I assume that was a time to market decision (I'm being coy, I don't "assume", I know for a fact...) Overall I thought it was a pretty good machine, sort of a rolls-royce of the 386 world. Pricey (tho not horribly so, $18K-ish fully configured with 8MB, cache, 300MB, 1Kx1K color etc), but also loaded with features. The real problem with the machine was with people who had no particular use for a '386 but just bought it as a variation on a workstation, perhaps moving from a '286 thinking they were venturing into safer territory. When they looked at the Sparcstation (or other company's RISCs) several months later they wished they had bought one of those. If you didn't have a specific need for its ability to run DOS applications and attach AT boards then the real value was lost on you. For a 386, at the time, Sun's Unix was light years ahead of other 386 Unix systems. Particularly in networking. A lot of them were sold, e.g., into Wall Street running the Quotron real-time ticker system and replacing a half-dozen monitors on desks with point and click windows. For applications like that little price/performance arguments were irrelevant, they had a job to do and this system did that job, quite well as I've heard it. -- -Barry Shein Software Tool & Die | {xylogics,uunet}!world!bzs | bzs@world.std.com Purveyors to the Trade | Voice: 617-739-0202 | Login: 617-739-WRLD