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From: larry@geowhiz.UUCP (Larry McVoy)
Newsgroups: net.micro,net.micro.pc,net.micro.16k,net.micro.68k,net.works,net.unix,net.unix-wizards
Subject: Inexpensive Unix box?
Message-ID: <279@geowhiz.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 13-Nov-85 01:58:21 EST
Article-I.D.: geowhiz.279
Posted: Wed Nov 13 01:58:21 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 15-Nov-85 05:21:45 EST
Reply-To: larry@geowhiz.UUCP (Larry McVoy)
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Organization: UW Madison, Geology Dept.
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Xref: watmath net.micro:12692 net.micro.pc:5856 net.micro.16k:402 net.micro.68k:1305 net.works:1183 net.unix:6242 net.unix-wizards:15713

I have a friend (who won't be a friend anymore if Pnews chokes again)
who bought an AT&T Unix PC.  He's happy with the performance but not
with the hard disk.  The controller is the WD1010xx (which I think
causes all the problems).  The problem appears to be that the disk gets
randomly corrupted, leading to disk errors.  This poor guy has been
restoring his 40M disk from floppies about once a day...  He has not
been able to get the problem fixed despite intensive (?) efforts by
AT&T (his service contract has no penalty clause).  So, two questions:

1) Does anyone know how to fix the problem?  Want some quick $$$?

2) Given that we expect minimal response to (1), he's looking for a 
   different system.  Desired features:

   o  32 architecture (at least internally, a 16bit bus is acceptable).
   o  Unix, preferably 4.2, but SysV is better than MS-DOS :-)
   o  At least 4 serial ports, 6 would be better.
   o  1 or more parallel ports (laser printer).
   o  Either a reliable supplier f peripherals or a well known bus 
      (multi, VME, etc).
   o  Availibilty of solid service highly desirable (no brand X).
   o  Price tag of less than $15,000 (it is almost christmas :-)

   Systems we've heard of (sort of) and want info on:

   o  Altos
   o  Symetrics
   o  Integrated {Solutions | Systems}
   o  Opus (320xx, SysV in a PC slot)
   o  DSI-32 (Unix ready for this yet?)
   o  Sun (Out of reach price wise?)
   o  uVaxII (also expensive?)

   If you have any information on these or other systems, please let me
   know (salespeople are welcome).  If there is sufficient response, I 
   will summarize by vendor (read "don't send metoo messages, please") 
   to the net.

Thanks in advance,
-- 
Larry McVoy						+----------------+
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