Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!cunixf.cc.columbia.edu!cunixb.cc.columbia.edu!es1 From: es1@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Ethan Solomita) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: A3000UX Seems Fated Message-ID: <1990Dec14.053626.29025@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu> Date: 14 Dec 90 05:36:26 GMT References: <1990Dec14.045924.20212@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> Sender: news@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu (The Daily News) Organization: Columbia University Lines: 70 I don't object to your stating your opinions, but PLEASE try to get your facts straight. Your message is riddled with errors. In article <1990Dec14.045924.20212@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> sl35746@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (By-Tor) writes: >I just had a talk with one of our system administrators here, and I told him >about the A3000UX. He told me that Sun came out with a workstation that was >286 based and ran Unix along with PC's in windows that multitasked. I don't >know of the model number, but he said they didn't sell, and Sun discontinued. That is a 386. It was called the Sun 386i. It failed for many reasons, not the least of which was its price of over $10,000 and the fact that it was much slower than the SparcStation which was cheaper. >AmigaDOS and Unix will not run at the same time, and there is a much smaller >demand for Amiga compatibility than IBM compatibility, so I would think that >there isn't going to be much of a demand for these things unfortunately. >Considering you can buy a Sparcstation now for $3000 that comes inside a >1200x800 monitor that will outperform an A3000, with the expansion capability >to reach 100 MIPS, I really don't see where the market is. The A3000UX isn't meant to be an AmigaDOS machine. It is meant to be a Unix machine. And yes, you can get the Sun Sparcstation SLC for appr. $3,000 on educational discount only (if a department in your school will buy it, that is), but the machine is totally unexpandable and doesn't even come with a hard drive. You have to hook it up to a network or buy an external drive and a case. Of course, there is no disk drive or tape drive attached either, that is extra and external. As to performance, once the 040 starts shipping the Amiga will be around the same speed of the Sun SLC (it is the slowest of the sparcstations), if not faster. And there is no way that the SLC could be expanded to 100 MIPS. It can't be expanded internally! >Another interesting point he made was that Sun is almost guaranteed to support >their computers. Commodore is just starting out, so things will be even harder. >I don't really see the point of putting Unix on an Amiga. I think they should >have just made a Unix box that was competitive, and started from there. The >fact that AmigaDOS and Unix are totally isolated basically makes the point >almost moot to combine them in one box. The Unix side is limited to the hard- >ware that is needed to keep it Amiga compatible. What should they have put it on? They already make Amigas and aren't about to start making their own Sparc chips like Sun is. The Amiga is simply the computer. Just because it runs on an Amiga doesn't mean it should have to run AmigaDOS. And the isolation isn't necessarily permanent. You don't know what Commodore is planning and neither do I. >I guess they only real market niche they could sneak into, and probably won't >succeed in reaching, is a low-cost color workstation. If the current >implementation of X doesn't support color, then there is no way anyone will >buy it for color. Since when doesn't X support color? Currently (I believe) the AmigaDOS version of X doesn't support color (although the new version has been shown) but the Unix X most certainly does support color. Basically, an A3000UX with 040 and UofL graphics card would make an excellent low-end color workstation, but then again so would an A3000 without Unix. -- Ethan Woody Allen on Los Angeles: "I mean, who would want to live in a place where the only cultural advantage is that you can turn right on a red light?"