Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!att!dptg!ulysses!andante!mit-eddie!wuarchive!sdd.hp.com!ucsd!ucbvax!RICHTER.MIT.EDU!krowitz From: krowitz@RICHTER.MIT.EDU (David Krowitz) Newsgroups: comp.sys.apollo Subject: Re: ADUS conference news Message-ID: <9010191500.AA20214@richter.mit.edu> Date: 19 Oct 90 15:00:13 GMT Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU Organization: The Internet Lines: 66 Actually, buying new HP 9000 series 400 machines is *not* always less expensive than buying a DN3500/4500 or a DN2500 when you figure in the cost of peripherals, I/O bus options, and add-on memories. The stripped down 400dl is less expensive than a stripped down mono-chrome DN3500, but a DN2500 is less expensive than the 400dl and has an SCSI port (a $2000 upgrade from a 400dl to a 400t) and less expensive memories. If you are looking for a cheap seat for editing, debugging, CASE, etc. try the following comparison: 16 MB RAM, 200 MB disk, 19" mono screen DN2500  with 4MB, 19" screen ~ $4500 12 MB add-on PC SIMMS ~ $720 ($60/MB) 200 MB external Mac disk ~ $1200 (recent price, MacWeek) ========= $6420 HP 9000 400t 8MB, 19" screen ~ $7000 8 MB add-on RAM, 3rd party $3775 (Martech, "Workstation" ad, 10/90) *or* 8 MB add-on RAM, HP $4000 200 MB external Mac disk $1200 *or* 200 MB, HP internal disk ~ $2500 ====== $11975 (3rd party, Mac disk) #$13500 (HP) Now HP does a lot more in terms of selling specially priced bundled systems -- giving discounts if you buy a 400t with their own disk and memory added in at the factory -- but it only brings the cost down by about $1500 to $2000. The bundling makes it *real* hard to do cost comparisons, because small changes in system configuration can make big changes in the price. If you are looking for a color system instead of mono, a DN3500 is still a better buy than a similarly configured 400t or 400s (why compare to a 400s? because that's the only system that you can get a real I/O bus to plug your existing 3rd party PC boards into!). Do you need a DOS co-processor? Either you buy a DN3500/4500 (or my used DN4000!) and add the board in, or you buy a 400s or 433s (well, actually a 400s and an future CPU upgrade). A monochrome 400s with a 300MB disk and 8MB RAM is about $18,500 according to the bundled pricing I've got. A similar DN3500 is $15,600. If you go with a 4 plane color, 15" monitor on the DN3500, the price drops another $1000. If you go with 3rd party memory for the 8MB of RAM, it drops another $4000 (DataRam ~ $1700 vs HP ~ $5500). In all these comparisons, the HP 9000 is much faster than the corresponding DNxxxx, of course. But when you add up the cost of a fully configured system, the DNxxxx is still frequently less expensive. If you figure in the use of 3rd party RAM and disk, the DNxxxx can get a *lot* cheaper, while the HP 9000 3rd party prices are still fairly close to HP's list price. -- David Krowitz krowitz@richter.mit.edu (18.83.0.109) krowitz%richter.mit.edu@eddie.mit.edu krowitz%richter.mit.edu@mitvma.bitnet (in order of decreasing preference)