Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!helios.physics.utoronto.ca!ists!yunexus!pmcd
From: pmcd@yunexus.yorku.ca (Phil McDunnough)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Info on new low-end Mac
Message-ID: <13128@yunexus.YorkU.CA>
Date: 26 Jul 90 02:47:33 GMT
References: <1816@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca>
Sender: news@yunexus.YorkU.CA
Organization: York University, Toronto, Ont.
Lines: 37

In article <1816@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca> lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca (Larry Phillips) writes:
>Sun's discounts to educational _institutions_ is indeed attractive, though that
>discount is not necessarily available to students.

Well, as you know that may change. But in any case, I was talking from 
the point of view of a faculty member, as I still consider the A3000
beyond the means of most students. If it isn't, then I should be paid
more and tuitions raised! The list price of around $7000(FST in) and the
SCSI port make the SLC far` less expensive to univers{ties than an Amiga.
>
>An Ethernet card and software to run it will cost in the order of $500 US.
>Brings the cost of the 3000 up to about $6000 list. If CBM's Unix comes in at
>over $1000, they will be about the same price.
 
Think about it. $6000 for an Amiga with a small 100 meg HD, and a very poor
math coprocessor. The MFLOPS' rating from the 030/882 combination is not high.
This $6000 price is not aimed at students, and you know it.
> You say the Amiga just doesn't have the software
>available for it at the moment, yet you compare the Amiga with the SPARC as if
>they were both running Unix, and both needed to be networked. Make up your
>mind. CBM's Unix will be ABI compliant. Think about what that means in terms of
>software availability.

The A3000 has a niche market(video) under the Amiga OS. So I was comparing    
the typical faculty setup. No major companies have committed to the Amiga
to my knowledge. As such, they won't make it in the corporate world( which
may be a blessing in disguise). System V release 4.0 of Unix is still unstable
and even if it weren't, people would still have to  port their software to
the Amiga. As a simply example, try seeing if Statsci( a commercial vendor
of S+-> a research statistical graphics package) will be having S+ running
on the A3000. If they say yes, then I will take back every negative comment
I have said about software availabilty for the Amiga.

Philip McDunnough
University of Toronto
philip@utstat.toronto.edu
[my opinions]