wtm@uhura.neoucom.EDU (Bill Mayhew) (06/28/90)
3B2-600s actually make fairly decent machines. If anything kills or has killed the 3B2 line, it is lack luster marketing as usual. My favorite AT&T marketing misfit is the 7300/3B1. The 3B1 is sort of the Studebaker Avanti of computers (though the 3B1 case was not designed by Raymond Lowe). When the 7300 was introduced about 6 years ago, the 3B1 could make the low end 3B2 products look slow in the compute power department. Of course 3B2s hold up much better as users are added, and 3B2s had much better Winchesters than early 7300s. Even now, many people that see my 3B1 say, "Oh where did you get that unusual looking terminal?" I point out that the terminal runs multi-user Unix and has a MIPS rating about equal to a Vax 750. The response is usually, "Oh, I thought it took a Mac II to do that." "The 3B1 has been doing that for about six years." "GEE!" "No, AT&T" "Oh?..." (Well actually Convergent Technology...) ==Bill== -- Bill Mayhew Northeastern Ohio Universities College of Medicine Rootstown, OH 44272-9995 USA phone: 216-325-2511 wtm@uhura.neoucom.edu ....!uunet!aablue!neoucom!wtm
les@chinet.chi.il.us (Leslie Mikesell) (06/30/90)
In article <1990Jun28.111353.29426@uhura.neoucom.EDU> wtm@uhura.neoucom.EDU (Bill Mayhew) writes: >My favorite AT&T marketing misfit is the 7300/3B1. My favorite use for a 3B1 is to keep one around to point to and smile when an AT&T salesman tries to tell me why I should buy something else from them (software support, what's that?). Les Mikesell les@chinet.chi.il.us
shwake@raysnec.UUCP (Ray Shwake) (07/09/90)
In article <1990Jun29.182049.23255@chinet.chi.il.us> les@chinet.chi.il.us (Leslie Mikesell) writes: > >My favorite use for a 3B1 is to keep one around to point to and >smile when an AT&T salesman tries to tell me why I should buy >something else from them (software support, what's that?). As a marketing case history, yes the 3B1/7300 is a sorry tale. And yet, the system remains one of the more innovative of its era. While Sun and Apollo were offering expensive (and laudable) workstations for the techies, here was a windowing UNIX box for the "rest of us" (no apologies to Apple!) supporting a development system in 1 (one!) MB on a 40 MB drive.
murphyn@motcid.UUCP (Neal P. Murphy) (07/11/90)
shwake@raysnec.UUCP (Ray Shwake) writes:
...
: workstations for the techies, here was a windowing UNIX box for
: the "rest of us" (no apologies to Apple!) supporting a development
: system in 1 (one!) MB on a 40 MB drive.
You failed to mention that it was the first inexpensive demand-paged virtual
memory Unix system on the market.
NPNles@chinet.chi.il.us (Leslie Mikesell) (07/13/90)
In article <3977@bone13.UUCP> motcid!murphyn@uunet.uu.net writes: >shwake@raysnec.UUCP (Ray Shwake) writes: >: workstations for the techies, here was a windowing UNIX box for >: the "rest of us" (no apologies to Apple!) supporting a development >: system in 1 (one!) MB on a 40 MB drive. > >You failed to mention that it was the first inexpensive demand-paged virtual >memory Unix system on the market. And: the real reason that it didn't sell at the original ~8K price point. It wasn't just marketing, it was the fact the the box was deliberately not expandable to useful proportions. The fact that you *can* do development on a 40M machine without any available reasonable backup or networking support doesn't mean that anyone would *want* to. At the ~2K fire sale prices it appealed to people as a personal machine since 386's weren't around yet. With SCSI and network expansion support from the start, it might have sold. Les Mikesell les@chinet.chi.il.us