Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!mmlai!burzio
From: burzio@mmlai.UUCP (Tony Burzio)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.hp
Subject: Re: Dream System
Keywords: Rolls Royce, but poor marketing...
Message-ID: <54@gauss.mmlai.UUCP>
Date: 9 Dec 90 16:05:27 GMT
Organization: Martin Marietta Labs, Baltimore
Lines: 45

>I've posted this so amny other places, I might as well post it here
>too.  We have $150,000 to spend on hardware for a computer
>graphics visualization system.  Currently, we have an Apollo netwrok
>with about 25 nodes.  We're looking to do animation of finite
>element analysis results and CFD stuff.  Obviously, at this
>dollar level we'll get a lot of CPU speed.
>
>What would you buy? HP, Apollo, SGI, SUN, STARDENT?  How would
>you configure your dream system.

Why, HP or course!  Regardless of the abysmal marketing ploys by
HP (i.e. none :-), the 835 TurboVRX is a real corker!  Running
SDRC IDEAS in X Window System mode, you should have your socks
blown off!  Nice animations too, and they are VERY fast.  If you
can wait, the "snake" replacement for the 800 series, around the
spring(ish), should give you alarming speed (50+ MIPS?)!
If you really want mucho bang-for-the-buck, get a 400 TurboVRX.
As fast as a Sparc (until the $2K 68040 upgrade arrives, then
twice as fast) but more capable because most of the processing
of graphics is offloaded to the TurboVRX.

Some notes on the 835:  This processor is rated around 12 HP MIPS,
or 15 the way Sun counts them.  The difference between a Sparc and
the 835 is multi-user access (or one user doing two things, like
the 37 processes that SDRC spawns off while X is running :-)
The Sparc will die at process two, because of hardware limitations
(see old .arch postings for details), while the 835 will chug along
unhindered while around 8 CPU burdened jobs are running.

Another marketing secret at HP is the stability of HP-UX, HPs' UNIX
variant.  Very easy to use, and it works great (as long as you use Suns' 
manuals to figure out UUCP :-)  The local HP support (at least for
the moment, the recession may change things) is SUPERB!!!!

Buy from HPs' remarketing or demo sales.  You usually get 50% off
on currently produced systems.  A computer that has run for a
while is much more reliable than a "new" one.  We got 2 GB of disk
for the price of one.  All our "used" parts are under contract and
are still running after three years.

*********************************************************************
Tony Burzio               * Time to SKI!!!
Martin Marietta Labs      *
mmlab!burzio@uunet.uu.net *
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