roy@phri.UUCP (Roy Smith) (08/01/86)
The intent of this posting is to elicit "compare and contrast the
HP-9020C and Sun 3/160C" type of responses. Since that is a very broad
question, let me give a bit of background.
We've recently invested fairly heavily in Sun-3 hardware (14
workstations including a 3/160C and 2 file 3/180 servers). A new faculty
member who will be coming this September has an old H/P workstation which
he loves but won't be able to take with him and would like to get a new
HP-9020C (I think that's the right model number) to replace it. The
application he is most interested in is drawing perspective space-filling
molecular models.
The HP has the (not at all insignificant) advantage of running
HP-Basic. This fellow has a lot of software that he has written in
HP-Basic. Since he has spent the past several years writing in that
language so that's what he knows and likes best. HP-Basic has some very
powerful extentions for doing the kind of graphics he wants to do. He's
afraid that having to learn C and the Sun graphics packages (GKS, etc) will
be more effort than it's worth -- he may be right.
The Sun has the advantage that it is well integrated into the rest
of the network. Also, since it has a standard bus (VME), you are not tied
to one particular vendor for expansion. Also, I suspect that C or Fortran
on the Sun will be a lot faster than Basic on the HP (although, HP-Basic is
no speed slouch). Of course, the Sun equipment is already here; the HP
system will require spending another $40k or so.
As you see, there are strong arguments on both sides. Any insights
which might help us decide between the two machines would be greatly
appreciated.
--
Roy Smith, {allegra,philabs}!phri!roy
System Administrator, Public Health Research Institute
455 First Avenue, New York, NY 10016berger@datacube.UUCP (08/06/86)
Sounds like a good argument to bite the bullit and learn C and GKS.
That way the next time the person moves he has skills that are portable
to many differnt environments instead of being addicted to a propiatary
language and environment.
Bob Berger
Datacube Inc. 4 Dearborn Rd. Peabody, Ma 01960 617-535-6644
ihnp4!datacube!berger
{seismo,cbosgd,cuae2,mit-eddie}!mirror!datacube!berger