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From: barry@pico.math.ucla.edu (Barry Merriman)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Don't upgrade---bifurcate!
Keywords: upgrade
Message-ID: <412@kaos.MATH.UCLA.EDU>
Date: 26 Sep 90 01:22:59 GMT
Sender: news@MATH.UCLA.EDU
Distribution: na
Organization: UCLA Dept. of Math,
Lines: 33

To all you old Cube owners (just about everyone :-),
here's an interesting option to upgrading---is it viable?

Motivation: the old Cube sits in limbo between the Slab
and the NeXTDimension Cube---its got the display of the former,
the chassis of the latter. Rather than upgrade it to _either_ one
of these, why not _bifurcate_ it into two machines.

What I mean is: buy a Slab chassis, a NeXTDimesion board and a color
Monitor; pair the slab with the MegaPixel from the old Cube. Pair the old cube
itself with the color board and monitor. Then, switch the CPU's
so the 030 is in the slab, 040 in the Cube.

Viola---you end up with two NeXTs: a 040 full color one 
with optical drive for the office, and a low end Slab with an 030 and
floppy drive for home use. 
All for the cost of 1 Slab chassis + 1 Color board + 1 Color Monitor
(roughly equal to the ingredients of a single color system, so
the total number of NeXT computers is conserved in this process:-)

Even better, if its true the NeXTDimension board can drive other
monitors, I could you the 19'' color monitor on my Sparcstation,
and save the price of a monitor. (Hmm...that leaves us with a Sparc chassis...?)

Can it be done? 
(I've gotta find some way to transmute my
Cube + SparcStation into  a NexTDimension + some other NeXT!!:-)

--
Barry Merriman
UCLA Dept. of Math
UCLA Inst. for Fusion and Plasma Research
barry@math.ucla.edu (Internet)