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From: dltaylor@cns.SanDiego.NCR.COM (Dan Taylor)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: A3000UX vs. Sun Sparc
Message-ID: <892@cns.SanDiego.NCR.COM>
Date: 16 Apr 91 01:22:55 GMT
References: <44277@ut-emx.uucp> <0&1G2r9p1@cs.psu.edu>
Organization: NCR Corp. SE-San Diego
Lines: 59

In <0&1G2r9p1@cs.psu.edu> melling@cs.psu.edu (Michael D Mellinger) writes:


>In article <44277@ut-emx.uucp> sjk@ut-emx.uucp (bob) writes:

>   So, can anyone start an intelligent debate comparing 3000UX (200MB
>   drive and 8+MB RAM) vs. bottom line Sparcstation?

>Why bother since the NeXT is a better deal than the bottom of the line
>Sparc?

>-Mike

Intelligent, not noise.  Please remember, not the whole world gets
NeXT educational discounts.

Real discussion:

The biggest single advantage that a Sun has (over NeXT, too, Mike) is
the broad range of applications support.  Since the Sun commercial base
is a decade old, now, and the 68K applications got ported to SPARC, there
is probably no other workstation under 7K, except the PC, with as many
apps.  Since the Sun is UNIX, of a sort, the commercial prices for
software are high, but this will be a common factor in the comparision.
After the 68K ABI for System V.4 gets established this difference will
diminish, but may not disappear.

When Amiga UNIX 2.0 comes out, there will be color X on the Amiga, but
the lowest-end SUN will be monochrome, and not upgradable.  There are
slightly higher models that are upgradeable.

The A3000 is self-contained, while the Sun requires a shoebox for disk.
However, the A3000 doesn't currently have room for an internal cartridge
tape, either.  Personally, I opted for an A2500/30, and am waiting for
the UNIX release.  Meanwhile, I've got a killer personal computer.  This
brings up an Amiga strong point.  The A3000 has 4 expansion slots,
although 1 will be burned for the 24-bit color, and 1 for a network
adapter, if you get them.  They may not be necessary, for you.  The Sun
does come with embedded Ethernet.

Sun's UNIX is closer to bsd than Amiga's, however, V.4 has a pretty
good bsd compatiblity library, so "freeware" and university code ports
reasonably well to the Amiga.

There is also this:  the A3000 can also be run as an Amiga.  There are
lots of inexpensive applications that run on AmigaDOS.

Hands on, the A3000 feels more responsive than the low-end Sun.  I do
wish C= would publish Specmarks, but I suspect that they're waiting 
until UNIX 2.0 is out to get "real" numbers.  I'd like to see the Xbench
numbers then, too.

As I said, I opted for an Amiga to run UNIX, partly because I don't
have a lot of need for particular Sun applications.
A lot of this comparison depends on how you plan to use the computer.
Send me email if you'd like more detailed opinions.

Dan Taylor
* My opinions, not NCR's. *