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From: mslater@cup.portal.com (Michael Z Slater)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: OS cost component of workstation
Message-ID: <35688@cup.portal.com>
Date: 7 Nov 90 04:00:23 GMT
References: <2176@lupine.NCD.COM> <42310@mips.mips.COM>
  <3686@skye.ed.ac.uk> <1990Nov1.234831.2066@ico.isc.com>
  <3699@skye.ed.ac.uk> <2840@crdos1.crd.ge.COM>
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
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With respect to the cost of the OS for RISC workstations:

If you buy a SPARC chip set from LSI Logic, the OS license is built in.
You pay $25K for a design kit, which includes a complete hardware
documentation package and a working system board -- and a tape with SunOS,
C compiler, NFS, etc.  You can then distribute binary copies without any
additional fees -- as long as each one goes with an LSI chip set.  The
OS port was done by Opus Systems, so I suppose they'll be providing support.

Michael Slater, Microprocessor Report   mslater@cup.portal.com
707/823-4004