Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!swrinde!ucsd!ucrmath!lord_zar From: lord_zar@ucrmath.ucr.edu (wayne wallace) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy Subject: Re: Anyone actually own an 040 Amiga? Message-ID: Date: 10 May 91 23:00:57 GMT References: <2q4Gfxv*1@cs.psu.edu> <1991May9.202323.5208@sbcs.sunysb.edu> <1991May10.172410.6666@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu> Organization: University of California, Riverside Lines: 63 melling@cs.psu.edu (Michael D Mellinger) writes: >In article <1991May10.172410.6666@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu> es1@cunixb.cc.columbia.edu (Ethan Solomita) writes: > There's nothing wrong with it. It is simply that if you > think in three years anyone will actually PAY YOU 3 grand, you've > got a few screws loose. 8-) >So, what do you think a $5000 computer that runs at 15 mips with a 17" >display will be worth in 3 years? >-Mike Considering you just described a SPARCStation 1, (We have'em and the stats _do_ fit) and Sun cut their prices from 10K to 5K, and put out SPARCStation 2, I'd say ~1500-2000 because YOU KNOW RISC technology or whatever the new breakthrough is, will put EVERYONE to shame. Your NeXT 030 or 040 will be like a PCjr, and so will a SPARC 1, because theSPARC 2 will cost $5000 by then, and SPARC 3 will be out. Remember, every computer is obsolete as soon as you buy it because a new model will be out in a year or two anyways. As for the 88K NeXT RISC, well, when I see it, I'll believe it. It's a shame motorola's chips are falling behind the times. When the 88K is (hopefully) more common, I suspect even my computer (yes, an Amiga. 2500/20) will be left out as C= introduces the A88k or whatever their custom risc chip will be. I expect your fodder 030 and 040 NeXTs to be affordable to the middle class in a few years, if not out of production, and I expect to see substantial price drops in everything. You're fooling yourself. RISC will make everything die like fodder. I've used SPARC 1s for quite a while, and considering how fast they went with 8 megs of ram, and the speed increase when they were upgraded to 16 megs, nothing will be worth anything in 3 years. As for my plans, well, I'm gonna put off the 030 board, and when prices get settled on the 040, I'm upgrading my 2500 to 2500/40. Why? Simple. Games. :-) I expect my 2500 to sit @ home (non-college home) while I zoom in my new Amiga 88000UX with 32-bit 100Mhz custom chips, with two 88k chips so I can effortlessly switch between AmigaOS and Unix, and do a bit mroe programming than I do now, because the final version of gcc for AmigaOS should be done by then. Hey, with a Sun 4/490 server and 18 SPARCs at school with xwindows and mwm, you think I'm going to use my Amiga when all the expensive stuff is free for use? My Amiga currently fulfills: compiling off-line and various multimedia like songs, games and animation in Color, for much less than a Slab. In 3 years, your NeXT and my Amiga won't sell for more than $1500, really. I'll still have a need for my old Amiga, though. Your 4.3 BSD machine with outdated software and OS (3 years is a LOT of development time) will sit there like a slab because 4.3 BSD will be a dying dialect in 3 years. SYSVR4 will catch on, SunOS 5.0 will be out, if not 5.1 or 5.2, or even 6.0, and you'll be STUCK. Offhand, my computer, which can (if I got the boards) run 3 OS's (Amiga, IBM, Mac) simultaneously (not sure about the Mac, but I know IBM progs multitask within amiga progs) and thusly has access to far more software than NeXT could dream of (on the 030 or 040 machines) will definitely sell for more than a NeXT, if only by a few hundred dollars, minimum. This, of course, is just where _I_ see the future heading. In 3 years I want to hear the death knell of Intel's 8088/8086/286/386/486/586 line and Motorola's 680x0 line as everyone goes to RISC, but it may not happen if IBM futilely pushes the x86 line and Apple pushes the 680x0 line. As for Commodore, well, I have faith in Commodore to use the best chips out there. Perhaps at some point NeXT and C= can join in sounding the call for moving to better chips. Wayne