Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!usc!cs.utexas.edu!milano!peyote!woan
From: woan@peyote.cactus.org (Ronald S. Woan)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.aix
Subject: Re: Risc System/6000
Summary: you're right
Message-ID: <415@peyote.cactus.org>
Date: 21 Feb 90 06:43:55 GMT
References: <1514@fcs280s.ncifcrf.gov> <4115@ibmpa.UUCP> <10307@hoptoad.uucp> <1990Feb21.012432.22401@ico.isc.com>
Organization: Capital Area Central Texas Unix Society, Austin, TX
Lines: 42

In article <1990Feb21.012432.22401@ico.isc.com>, rcd@ico.isc.com (Dick Dunn) writes:
> ron@woan.austin.ibm.com (Ronald S. Woan/2100000) writes:
> ...[price info deleted]
> > Not a bad price, even so, considering 27.5 MIPS (peak 100) and
> > 7.5MFLOPS. That works out to be $543.45/MIP system cost which is the
> > lowest in the industry, even among name brand 386/486 PCs, I believe.
> 
> Let me start by saying that the new IBM boxes look like they'll actually
> come in at believable prices when they're available.  That nicety out of
> the way,...
> 
> 27.5 MIPS is a junk number.  There is no useful meaning to "MIPS" which

You are definitely right. I didn't look to carefully at how they came up with
the numbers and Dhrystone 1.1 is definitely a wimpy way to go (yeah, I can 
flame my cohorts). Anyway, I got a little carried away at the marketing hype
and the numbers that Data General loves to quote. But a better mark I guess
would be the SPECS 20-30 (I believe), so for the $12995 deal in the Wall Street
Journal (is this a limited time offer or where did they arrive at that price?)
you get a system at $650/SPEC or so. Why are SPECs the geometric mean rather
than average by the way?
  
As with all hardware, try before you buy; I think that you will be impressed
especially with the graphics workstation model. One last marketing slogan 
before I go that seems a little more apt than the buck/MIP stuff: "buy a 
solution not just a hunk of hardware."

As for the question of service, I think that we are really commited to it 
this time and are improving problem and system tracking as well as beefing
up trained personnel. Some people don't realize it, but internal IBM'ers
have to call the same service people as our customers, so for our own
sakes I know we are trying our best (yeah, I've fried an RT and two mice in 
last eight months and some of the service personnel never seemed to
have heard of an RT, not much enough units out there I guess).

					My apologies all,
					Ron
-- 
+-----All Views Expressed Are My Own And Are Not Necessarily Shared By------+
+------------------------------My Employer----------------------------------+
+ Ronald S. Woan         @cs.utexas.edu:romp!auschs!woan.austin.ibm.com!ron +
+ second choice:                                     woan@peyote.cactus.org +