From: books@fsunuc.physics.fsu.edu (Roger Books)
Subject: Re: SPARCclassic vs. 486 (Was Re: SPARCClassic (and other Sun announcments))
Organization: FSU nuclear physics
Date: Fri, 13 Nov 92 14:12:47 GMT

In article <kzin.721635961@cc.gatech.edu> kzin@terminus.gatech.edu (John Rudd) writes:

>books@fsunuc.physics.fsu.edu (Roger Books) writes:
>
>(specific cost details omitted)
>
>>Total $4,345				$4,465
>
>>The question, is Solaris and a multi-user machine worth more than $120
>>to you?  That's an easy one for me.
>
>>Roger
>>books@fsunuc.physics.fsu.edu
>
>The problem is, the difference is more than $120.  How much does a good
>word processing package cost for a Dos/Windows environment?  how much
>does it cost for a SparcStation?  You forgot that if your Sparcstation is
>a standalone, you MUST buy a CDROM, since you wont be able to load the
>OS off of the network.  The Gateway doesn't require a CDROM, so you really
>don't need to include that in the cost of the Gateway.  You have to have
>either a tape drive or CDROM to get most of the software distributions
>for the sun.  For the Intel, most of them come on floppy.
>

Sorry, left out the CD-ROM.

>Oh, and the Floppy for the LX costs $150, not $100.
>
>So, you've got to buy a $650 CDROM, and if you're buying, say, FrameMaker..
>that's, waht, another $800?
>
>Whereas, word for windows is $400?  Gateway total is $4745, Sparc is $5965
>

Mostly I use emacs so that doesn't enter into the picture.

>what does a good laser printer cost?  for the sparc you get a sparcpritner
>for $2500.  For the Gateway you get a TI Microlaser for $1200ish.
>The Sparc now costs you in the area of $8500.  The Gateway in the area of
>$6000.  
>

Actually, I don't buy anything but HP laser printers.  I will put the
same printer on the PC or the Sun.  (I have a HP-3 on my PC at home, 
$1500 + mem + Postscript, about $2100 total. Both serial and Parrallel.)

What's stopping you from hooking the TI up to the Sun?

>
>Then there's "Do I want to do development?".  If you want to, and you
>aren't on the internet.. you're going to pay $300 to $2000 for a C
>development system.  On a dos machine, $300 is near your upper limit.
>

Hold on, doesn't Solaris come with a c-compiler?  If I don't like Suns
compiler I get GNU C.  If I have no internet access I believe I can order
it from FSF.  If it's not on CD-ROM it soon will be.

>
>Don't get me wrong.. I'm willng to pay an extra $3k for a Sun workstation.
>I think it's worth more than double a Dos Box.  But your analysis is flawed
>in that the cost of the hardware isn't the only relevant area.  The cost
>to the user will include software..and Unix systems in general, and Sun
>systems specifically are still WAY behind in this market area.
>
>Also keep in mind that you can at this point divide your harddisk in to
>two partitions, and have a DOS partition and a BSD/386 partition..this will
>only cost you $1000, tho you'll have to buy a tape drive.. so maybe your
>system is now at $8000.. You've paid $500 less than the sparc, you have
>your choice of low cost Dos aps, or advanced unix aps (bsd/386 will soon
>support SCO applications, and runs non-graphics dos applications).
>(to get your sparc to run those nice dos applications will cost you even
>more money..but atleast then you can afford to buy cheaper software)
>

I'm still curious as to how good bsd/386 is going to be.  How are they
going to sell 386BSD when they are giving away bsd/386?  This isn't a valid
point though because Linux is very stable.

>The questions don't stop at simple hardware analysis.  You also need
>to know what you want out of the system.  And in that case, cost may
>be irrelevant.  
>
>(I guess the best summary of hte above is: the previous posts about
>'a gateway costs X, and a Sparc costs X + a little more so buy a Sparc'
>are a little absurd, as they don't take enough of the system picture
>in to account to be a reasonable model of the total end user cost; nor
>do they take in to account the purpose of the system and the best way
>to meet that goal)
>

I will also admit I am biased against anything running the Intel 80x86
family of chips.  I am sure everyone has heard enough of that.

>
>John

Roger
books@fsunuc.physics.fsu.edu