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From: landman@hanami.Eng.Sun.COM (Howard A. Landman x61391)
Newsgroups: sci.virtual-worlds
Subject: Re: Inside Virtual Reality by Jeremy Wolff
Message-ID: <139357@sun.Eng.Sun.COM>
Date: 23 Jul 90 21:13:18 GMT
References: <1990Jul12.105135.21310@sci.ccny.cuny.edu> <9007161740.AA22033@dgbt.doc.ca>
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In article <1990Jul12.105135.21310@sci.ccny.cuny.edu> patth@sci.ccny.cuny.edu (Patt Haring) writes:
> their software; Eric's "Desktop Virtual Reality" prototype is run by a
> Sun Sparkstation, a $12,000 dollar computer now selling as fast as the
> top-end Macintosh, and which Eric predicts will be down to $5000 by
> the end of the year.  [5/13: A woman at SENSE8 says Sun announced last
> week it was dropping the price of the Sparkstation by $5-6000.]

Just to keep things reasonably accurate:

In April 1989 Sun introduced the SparcStation 1 at prices from $9K to $16K
depending on graphics.  Around a year later, the SS1 (a.k.a. 4/60) was
replaced by the SS1+ (a.k.a. 4/65), which is about 25% faster but has the
same list prices.  The original SS1 is no longer being sold.  (You'd rather
have a SS1+ anyway.)

At the same time a new workstation, the SparcStation SLC, was introduced
starting at $5K.  The SS SLC is monochrome only.

I don't believe any model of SS has ever dropped "by $5-6000".  This may
be someone confusing the two models.  What *has* dropped (by $4K) is "the
price of the least expensive Sun workstation"; but only because we have
a new, lower cost model.

Disclaimer: If anything I said above is wrong it's my fault, not Sun's.

--
	Howard A. Landman
	landman@eng.sun.com -or- sun!landman