🚀 go-pugleaf

A little while back I requested suggestions on a cheap wonderful UNIX
box.  Briefly, I wondered why there were $10,000 Sun workstations,
$3,000 PC/AT clones, and not much in between, for decent personal
UNIX computes.

Well, I've been flooded with responses, and the net result seems to be
that the box I want doesn't exist.  Hardware vendors -- there does seem
to be a market hole here.  Listen up!

Responses fell into four main categories:

    1)	Buy a 386.

	This was probably the most realistic suggestion received, but perhaps
	a bit premature at this point.  The IBM announcement is only five days
	away now, so I'll wait to see what they're going to do.

    2)	Buy any of several cheapo timesharing boxes.  These include machines
	from Altos, Convergent, Dual, Megadata, NCR, and Symmetric.  These
	are generally based on a National 32xxx or Motorola 680x0 chip,
	except the Altos boxes, which are Intel-based.  Unfortunately,
	these boxes are not workstations, they're baby timesharing systems.
	All you get is serial terminal ports, no graphics or windows.

    3)	Buy an AT&T 7300.  Much as I hate to say it, this box seems to fit
	my requirements better than anything else.  But I've heard nothing
	good about this machine, and apparently repair prices are outright
	robbery.  The machine has been such a failure on the market that
	you can get them *real* *cheap* now, but I'm wary of switching to
	yet another failed product (I'm using a DEC Rainbow right now!).

    4)	Buy a Mac II.  This sounds promising, except that the memory
	management chip required to run UNIX, and the UNIX port itself,
	are vaporware at this time.  Maybe in six months this will bear
	another look.

There were also some intriguing components, PC/AT add-in boards, and
kits that people mentioned.  Some sounded quite fast and cheap.  However,
I just want to get work done.  I don't want to waste a lot of time assembling
the system, debugging it, and hacking up device drivers.  The box I want
should be running troff for me no more than two hours after I unpack it.

It seems to be a tossup between a Compaq 386 and the AT&T 7300...  but
I just can't shake this queasy feeling about the AT&T box...
-- 
Larry Campbell                                The Boston Software Works, Inc.
Internet: campbell@maynard.BSW.COM          120 Fulton Street, Boston MA 02109
uucp: {alliant,think,wjh12}!maynard!campbell        +1 617 367 6846