Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!mailrus!umich!samsung!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!uupsi!cmcl2!lanl!beta!peter From: peter@tern.stars.flab.Fujitsu.JUNET (Peter S. Ford) Newsgroups: comp.unix.aix Subject: Re: Risc System/6000 Message-ID: Date: 21 Feb 90 15:34:32 GMT References: <1514@fcs280s.ncifcrf.gov> <4115@ibmpa.UUCP> <10307@hoptoad.uucp> <1990Feb21.012432.22401@ico.isc.com> <415@peyote.cactus.org> Sender: news@lanl.gov Organization: University of Utah CS Dept Lines: 31 In-reply-to: woan@peyote.cactus.org's message of 21 Feb 90 06:43:55 GMT IBM's strategy for unbundling LAN and disk adaptors and software is not uncommon for the industry. I can never understand why people see unbundling as the GREAT evil. Is it that hard to read the price list and sum up the total cost and THEN do your comparisons? I seem to remember people slamming NeXT for not letting you buy a machine w/o an optical disk. wrt benchmarks. We have run over 10 science codes on the RS6000 and it is usually 4 times faster than a Sparcstation. No SPECmarks, no FLOPS, no XXXpacks, just 4 times faster. Your mileage may vary. This is the 520 model, which is the 20 MHz version of the machine and has a shallower data cache than the 25 & 30 MHz models. re screen sizes. All screens are 1280x1024. If you want a cheaper (albeit slower) machine you still buy a 3100 or a SparcStation. If you need floating pt crunch, it looks like the RS 6000 is a good choice (you may want to llok at the MIPS R/6000 as well, although not as a desktop workstation). Peter Ford, Center for Nonlinear Studies, Los Alamos -- Peter Ford MS-B258 Center for Nonlinear Studies Los Alamos, NM 87545 peter@lanl.gov