jhc@mtune.UUCP.UUCP (07/14/86)
In article <860709200041.00003289.AFYE.AA@UMass> Squonk@UMass.BITNET writes: Gosh! what a loong source Article-ID! Well, I'm very close to AT&T, but the following is *not* an official statement. But the following comments may be helpful, or at least informative. Or confusing. I can only try. This article consists of paraphrases from Stephen Halpin's original article, with my comments. Obviously these are somewhat restrained. >A few digests ago I requested information on the AT&T Unix PC. I >recieved [sic] 4 responses. I don't think that we ever got this article, and we are pretty well connected. If we didn't get it then half of AT&T didn't get it either. >Two said essentially that the 3B2 is a fast box if you can keep it >from crashing. The 3b2 and the unix pc are completely different beasts. A misspelling, perhaps? >The other two letters spoke highly of the Unix PC as a development >system. Hmmm. Thanks. >So far, so good. I called up AT&T to find out more about the >financial end of the deal only to find that it suffers from PC RTs >disease. Too little for too much. Everything is always too expensive. Let's examine these points. Personally I do not know the exact prices of unix pc extras. > I believe that the following points should be made: > -The notes on the digest itself suggest that you should run with > an extra 512k over the basic 1M configuration. The 512K card > with two serial ports comes with a four digit price tag. If > Atari can give you a FULL meg, an extra 68000, monitor, > keyboard, disk, box, power supply for a smaller four digit > figure (which it can) then there is something wrong here. The combo board may indeed cost this much. However there do exist add-on memory cards which come in 1/2M increments. Perhaps you could price these out. It is indeed a good idea to run with at least 1M memory in the unix pc. If Atari can provide so much for so little then good luck to them. Is their UNIX SVID-compatible? > -I have AT&T literature quoting the floppy as being able to hold > 320k, 360k, and 1.5M (unformatted for the 1.5). Interestingly > enough they are three different pieces of literature and they > dont say that it can read or write the other formats. This > makes me wonder a bit about compatability. We assume that the floppy on the unix pc runs ~330Kbytes. It can read and write floppies that can be read and written by the AT&T PC6300 and compatibles (that is the official phrase). The AT&T PC6300+ is more problematical. It can very probably read these floppies and may be able to write them. I make no comments about the truthfulness of salesmen's claims. Given the line above which mixed up the 3b2 and the unix pc I wonder if the pieces of literature do not refer to different products. >-The 3B1 (...) has a 5 digit price (+/-$5). By the time you end up >paying another say $2000 (this is an off the head guess based on the >512K ram board) to get it up to 4M, Perhaps you could use instead the price of the 1.5MB combo card? >a sizable sum for the 23M tape backup unit (which is essential), Actually we have found that a mixture of backing up to floppies and via uucp works tolerably well. Most of the disk space is taken up with the supplied software, which needn't be backed up at all. >and an Ethernet iterface [sic] (I have no evidence one exists), No comment is a comment. >your going to at least match that $13,900 listed for the Sun 3/52. Again, I would be surprised if the price really were that high. >The Sun has full networking software, BSD 4.2, much better screen >resolution, a faster processor (68020 as opposed to the 68010), etc. The networking software cometh. 4.2 is an advantage?? Screen resolution and the 020 vs the 010 are valid comments. > -The pricing on the 3B1 upgrade (from the 7300) seems too high. Very likely. I presume that the theory behind the pricing is that once you have the machine you are hooked... Sound familiar? > If you are buying a brand new 40M drive and 1M of 256K parts > (150ns) you might pay half of what AT&T charges (my price based > on prices in the back of BYTE... If these people can sell this > stuff at those prices so can AT&T). Perhaps. Actually you get a new motherboard for the money, and a certified drive and memory, which means that your maintenance contract covers it if/when it breaks. That costs. > If you were buying a new unit (NOT replacing the 20M drive or > the 64K parts) you would think that the upgrade price would not > be nearly as steep as it is. For the price difference I can get > that same 1M of ram, pick up a Maxtor 143M drive (the 10Mbit/sec > transfer rate isnt compatable with the Unix PCs 5Mbit/sec > transfer rate unless there is something that can slow the output > from the drive) and still have pocket change. While this drive > is not compatable I can certainly get a smaller drive for less > money. You're dead right is isn't compatible. You can put a maximum of a 67MB drive on the unix pc (alas). And you can't put the 1M RAM into the motherboard (my comments on *that* decision are not printable). Remember, piece part technology is always at least a generation ahead of 'conservative' systems. > -InfoWorld (June 9,1986) has an article. The way I interpreted > the points made in it were thus: AT&T will be promoting the > boxes multiuser ability. True. > So far they havent sold well (10,000 of 50,000 made to date). No comment. > The 6300+ (a 286 machine) will make the 7300 obsolete because it > will run MSDOS and Unix. (Though Id MUCH rather deal with a > 68010 than a 286...) Well the unix pc runs DOS and unix via the DOS card. I have no comment on the perceived market clash between the unix pc and the 6300+. > -My personal thoughts are that the 68010 as a multiuser system > will not catch on as Apple is rumored (ABSOLUTE HEARSAY) to have > a 68020 box ready to be put on the market and Atari is working > on a 68020 Unix box (this rumor seems to have a bit more > support) which will be priced so low that even adding terminals > to the Unix PC will not keep its price/ performance ratio high > enough to match these other machines, ESPECIALLY if they have > graphics hardware. This may be true. Let's wait until these rumoured machines are announced, then compare. Of course the Atari boxes will be less than useful if they don't have good networking software. >I hope someone at AT&T reads this.. As mentioned above, we got this article but not the preceding one. >If the price were lower I would most likely buy one. Its fast, easy >to use and has had time to have the bugs ironed out of it (the last >cant be said about the 68020 micros that are about to hit the >market). Well thank you. >It simply costs FAR too much to be considered competative in the >micro or workstation market, and as my wallet says Im a micro market >buyer I probably wont be using a Unix PC. "Oh well.." > -Stephen Halpin We have to talk philosophy here. The unix pc is aimed towards neither of the markets you mention, but rather towards the office automation and VAR/ISV markets. Both these markets are deemed to be rather less price-sensitive than the ones you name. There are other products which are supposed to compete in the micro and workstation markets. Also the unix pc features a SVID-compatible UNIX, which is supposed to thrill the VAR/ISV market by making programs and packages developed for it easily portable to other SVID-compatible machines. Yer pays yer money and yer makes yer choice... -- Jonathan Clark [NAC,attmail]!mtune!jhc My walk has become rather more silly lately.