From: tls@panix.com (Thor Lancelot Simon)
Subject: Re: Have $8000, what to buy?
Date: Thu, 13 Aug 1992 06:48:12 GMT
Distribution: comp
Organization: PANIX Public Access Unix & Internet, NYC

In article <MELLON.92Aug11123706@pepper.ncd.com> mellon@ncd.com (Ted Lemon) writes:
>
>The R4000 upgrade isn't available yet, to the best of my knowledge.
>I wouldn't count on being able to get it until it ships.   The
>graphics are okay, but don't get the standard DEC monitor - it's an
>utter piece of crap.   The good news is that I think it's VGA or SVGA

Of course, I think getting it before it ships is unlikely, but lots of glossy
stuff I've seen has mentioned the processor upgradeability, though I guess in
a "plausibly deniable" way.  I don't have any doubts that it'll happen.  What
really interests me about this beast is the potential for an Alpha upgrade,
actually, but nothing hard has been said about that so far as I know, save in
general about daughtercard MIPS machines, of which class the maxine is a member.

Monitors -- crummy?

DEC monitors always are.  With the original PMAX, you could have a Trinitron
for the same price as the 16" DEC monitor.  Is this stil the case?  Considering
what DEC's monitors must cost them (i.e a LOT less than a Sony) I would expect
that it's not.  Something to watch out for -- DECs usually have sync on the
wrong color, green, I think.  Don't know about the maxine wrt this either,
'cause the box on _my_ desk here is a 2100.

>It does indeed have ISDN on the motherboard.   The sound capability is
>part of the ISDN capability - you can't necessarily use both at the
>same time.

The SS10 has the same problem, no?

>I'm rather fond of the MAXine (also known as the DECstation 5000/25 or
>/33).   However, I must say that it's probably not a good deal in the

You forgot the /20, which last I looked was substantially cheaper than a /25.
I thought they were down around H.P.'s low-end prices, i.e. a little over $4000.
Is that a misconception?

>$8k range - you'll have trouble configuring all the things you'd want,
>getting a decent monitor and a big disk, and still being able to

I'm not so sure about that.  $4000 + $1100 (disk) + $(?, <= 1500) monitor leaves
you with a 500 meg disk, a nice monitor, and a 20MHz R3000, for $6600 or less.
I think it'd be doable with the /25, too.  Of course, if I'm wrong about the
base price, it's all up in the air again.  MIT Athena just bought a bunch of
these, I'm told.  Maybe someone there could comment on them.


>afford the CD-ROM and so on.
>
>Instead, I'd have to recommend that you use some sort of PC-clone
>configuration and run BSDI's product on it.  I'm pretty sure that you
>can get a really fast 486 box with enough memory and disk for on the
>order of $5k to 6k, and you can get BSDI's UNIX offering for $1k,
>including source.   This will probably give you performance at about
>the level of an IPC, but with more peripherals.   BSDI can probably
>recommend a configuration for you.

I think the maxine should outperform this configuration.  I've no hard data,
just a gut feeling.  On the other hand, I personally might buy this, but because
I'm very anxious to have a personal 'hack around' box with OS source.  I also
have a lot more good feeling towards the TurboChannel bus than towards ISA.
EISA I don't know enough about to comment on.

>
>If you want to do the system part on the cheap, you can probably do
>even better with Bill Jolitz's BSD386 release; the only problem is
>that you'll have to hack to bring it up, and I don't know if they have
>EISA support yet.

Nope, not that I've seen.  I didn't know BSDI was near shipping it until someone
told me so today.

-- 
Thor Lancelot Simon	 tls@panix.COM
  "Oh, you have wounded me!  I have very few prejudices, actually.  The
biggest problem is that I am intolerant of fools.  That is why I have
such a low tolerance level for Libertarians."  -- Jim McMaster