🚀 go-pugleaf

If I HAD to go but a Unix machine with my own money, I would get a
Radio Shack AT clone and run Xenix on it. If I had a going business
and could afford something nicer, a Sun 3 would be the ticket.

Hope that help,
-Zigurd

Look at the AT&T 7300 (Unix PC).  It has a 68010 CPU, real demand
page virtual memory, good keyboard, good screen, reasonable graphics
resolution, true Unix System V (release 3.0), small & quite.  I enjoy
both my machines very much, and still have to see a program that will
run on a VAX 750 any faster (actually the 7300 is almost twice as
fast [same load] as the 750.  The way to buy it cheap is this (works
for me..):

        1.  Go to computerland / Microage / mail order / etc place.
        2.  Buy the 512K, 10mb machine (useless as is, but wait).
        3.  Make sure you haggle the price (10% off list or better).
        4.  Buy a 2mb memory board from Alloy Engineering 
            (+1 617 875 6100).
        5.  Load system software ONLY, run some messy cpu/memory bound
            process for few days, test the modem (built-in), the
            serial port, the parallel port, etc.
        6.  In the mean time order a "74mbyte" (actually ~59) for IBM
            AT from 47th Street Photo (N.Y.) +1 800 847 4191
	    (+1 212 260 4415)
        6a. Buy an external disk expansion box (1 full height disk)
            as well as two ribbon cables (female on one side, card
            edge (female) on the other.  They need to be long enough
            to reach from inside the expansion box to the back of the
            computer. 
        7.  Buy/steal/make two ribbon cable extentions (female on one
            side, male with mounting flanges on the other).  One of
            these cables needs to be 34 conductors, the other one
            20.  Length of no more than 12 inches each.
        8.  Open the computer (2 screws in the back, 2 under
            keyboard's latches.
        9.  Remove & discard 10mb disk.
        10. replace OEM cables with short extension cables, route
            cables neatly to the outside & mount (using flanges).
        11. Close computer, carefully.
        12. Connect long ribbon cables (coming from disk, inside
            expansion box) to ribbon cables coming from computer.
        13. Boot diagnostics, if hard disk spins but will not talk to
            computer, you have one (or both) ribbon cable(s) installed
            backwards.
        14. Use the format, test winchester procedures to prepare
            disk. (use the multi-user option of formatting (4000
            blocks swap partition.
        15. Re-load Unix, etc. to the machine.
        16. Test Carefully
        17. Enjoy in good health.

As an option to the above you can buy the 3B1, pay $2-3K more and
have a little pretier version of same.  The only diference is in the
amount of memory; the 3B1 has 1/2mb mother board therfore will run up
to 4mb RAM, the 7300 has only 512K and can use only 2.5mb max (enough
for me).

If 2mb of memory are enough (vs. 2.5mb) you can buy the EIA/RAM board
from AT&T.  Buy it as .5mb board, buy 120ns 256K RAM chips
mail-order, and install them yourself.

Total Cost (Estimate):
7300                    $4,200.00
RAM                     $1,400.00
Disk                    $1,500.00
Expansion Box             $150.00
Unix foundation           $275.00
Unix Utilities            $450.00  /* See Note */
Taxes, Delivery, Agony    $800.00

Total Damage            $8,775.00

Oooops!  This is more than you asked for.  As a matter of fact this
is more that I though (or told my wife!).  But it makes for a neat
system.

/* Utilities Note: This will make an almost complete Version V
release 3.0 (troff is excluded).  You do get vi, ex, ksh (not csh,
but just as good (bad)).  It also gives you SV documentation, etc. */

--EOB--

p.s.  If you care, give me a call or drop a note.  You may even
convice me to sell you one of the two I have so I can buy another toy
and play some more.

Simon Shapiro  ...!ihnp4!lll-lcc!simon_pc!simon

1335 Creekside dr. #4 Walnut Creek, CA 94596 +1 933 9468

A friend of mine has a Whitechapel MG-1.  It's got a 32032 (32x32
coming "sometime soon") and runs 4.1bsd (4.2 is apparently in
beta-test).  He describes it as a poor man's Sun and is very pleased
with it.  It cost him around cdn$10,000 which would be us$7000 or so,
I think (>1meg memory, 20meg disk, 800x1000 bit-map screen, un*x,
window manager, various ports, mouse, ...).  I'll give you more info
if you want.

-- 
-- Peter Ludemann
        ludemann@ubc-cs.uucp (ubc-vision!ubc-cs!ludemann)
        ludemann@cs.ubc.cdn  (ludemann@cs.ubc.cdn@ubc.mailnet)
        ludemann@ubc.csnet   (ludemann%ubc.csnet@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA)

Have you looked at the AT&T 7300 UNIX pc or the 3B1?

---

Gary J. Smith @ ETHOS, Durham, North Carolina
======================================================================
uucp: ihnp4!burl!ethos!smith  usm: 707 Ninth St #13  phn: 919/286-7055
      mcnc!rti-sel!ethos!smith     Durham, NC 27705  bbs: 919/286-3573

I don't know if your realize it, but the low-end Sun 020 workstation
is about 8K without disk. It seems that this your best bet if you do
not need bus expansion... Call your Sun salesman to find out more.

p.s I am not connected with Sun