Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!rutgers!gatech!hao!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!hplabs!hpcea!hpda!hpsmtc1!dlw From: dlw@hpsmtc1.HP.COM (David Williams) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac Subject: The cost of A/ux (Sticker Shock) Message-ID: <11540137@hpsmtc1.HP.COM> Date: 13 Feb 88 01:35:50 GMT Organization: Hewlett Packard, Cupertino Lines: 61 Well I guess A/UX is for the rest of us, if we work for the military, fortune 100 or a university. Monochrome "entry" system $8,597 Color system "entry" system $9,346 Development system (no monitor) 4megs of Ram $8,399 Development system monochrome & Ethertalk $9,996 Development system color & Ethertalk $10,745 Upgrade for current Mac II owners: 80meg [slow] disk (internal or external) with A/UX, PMMU & 4 megs of ram internal drive: $4,879 [OUCH!!!!!] external drive: $4979 [OUCH!!!!!] A/UX reference manuals: $649 [Unbelievable, the HIGHEST priced set of manuals I've heard of] And now for a few comments: Boy, I hope one gets the SOURCE to A/UX for those prices. APPLE, I GUESS YOU DO NOT WANT INDIVIDUALS TO BUY A/UX AND DO ANY DEVELOPMENT. I could buy a Mac II and ANY other 386 box with Unix or a SUN workstation for cheaper than your prices. This seems to follow a very disturbing trend in Apple & third party pricing policies. Now that it is "acceptable" to buy macintoshes in corporate america, Apple has no interest in selling to those of us who bought into their philosophy, championed their products in corporate america and at home and stood by the Mac since its introduction in 84. I have no problem with apple making lots of money, more power to you! But, perhaps you fail to recognize that the "enthusiasts" that are often referred to by spokesmen for Apple are actually CHANGE AGENTS, who recognize the power and value of things like the Mac and adopt it. These people put their money where their mouth is and personally buy the machines, and bring them to work and use them until their companies finally notice that yes, these people are productive and these technologies are valid (like the Macintosh). Perhaps Apple merely views A/UX as just another Trojan Horse to get Macs bought by Universities and the federal government. Does box M run Un*x? Yes? Ok it passes the approved checklist. If this is so, maybe I should not buy A/UX from apple and buy a Unix box from someone else. I mean SoftPC which emulates and allows you to run MS-DOS/Windows applications does not cost $3000, it costs $695 which IS certainly affordable if DOS/Windows is necessary. Hmmm, maybe someone will come out with a unix for the Mac II that doesn't cost an arm and a leg. Maybe Stanford, MIT, Chevron and Seafirst have 5-10k to spend on A/UX, but those of us who PERSONALLY want a Mac II are hard pressed spending 5-6k on just hardware, yet alone the additional sw cost. Gee, I wonder if it makes more sense to just wait 2-3 months and buy the NeXT machine, which will run Unix and at far faster speeds than the Mac II. It will remain to be seen if Steve J & company have been infected with the "price it for business and forget the individual mentality". David Williams "And while we are at it why is it a $10k computer has a 90day warranty?" Disclaimer: This fascinating opinion has been brought to you by me and not my employer.