tron1@tronsbox.xei.com (HIM) (12/03/90)
The below came fom a local BBS and jives with my paper copy. =========================================================== A Unix Graphics Workstation for the Rest of the World Reprinted from Byte, December 1990 By: Ben Smith (Posted without permission) Amiga enthusiasts keep telling me that the Amiga is a serious computer, that it is for the business and professional user. But old beliefs are hard to shake -- at least they were until I saw the Amiga 3000UX. This workstation is the most complete implementation of the new AT&T Unix System V release 4. The base Amiga 3000UX machine includes a 25-MHz MC68030, a math coprecessor, 8 megabytes of RAM, a 100-MB SCSI drive (optional 200MB), and either a high-resolution monochrome display or the standard Amiga color display. All the hardware parts are already integrated with the system, including a port for an additional floppy disk drive, a port for a parallel printer, and a serial connection for an external terminal, modem, or printer. Although Ethernet (thick- or thin-wire) is an option, the network software is already in place. Most important, the system includes Unix System V release 4 and the X Window System, including Level 1 implementation of Open Look. the Unix manual pages are on-line. Bundled with the operating system are two C compilers (the AT&T standard compiler and the GNU optimizing comiler), the popular screen-oriented mail manager elm, and several Amiga - specific utilities. The Amiga 3000UX with release 4 is not a clone, not a work-alike, nor a toy. It is a nononsense workstation that is impressive and compact. I am not saying that if you put the Amiga beside a full-size SPARCstation or a Silicon Graphics workstation, the differences are in favor of the Amiga. Consider the work (and money) that is required to build a workstation out of a 386-based Industry Standard Architecture or Extended Industry Standard Architecture bus machine; you have to get one part here and another part there. All the parts have to be configured to work together without conflicts in interrupts and memory addresses. The Amiga 3000UX is a plug-and-play operation. The newest release of Unix System V is significant because it incorporates the BSD features that make it so well suited for workstation computing, including mechanisms for mounting remote file systems and distributed processing. Since AT&T sells only source code rights to Unix (unless you are buying an AT&T computer), users have had to wait until the hardware vendors finished their work on porting the new source codes to their machines. Although many Unix licenses are well along in completing this task, it appears that Commodore will be the first to complete it. The Amiga 3000UX greatly outperforms the equivalent NeXT and Mac with A/UX. In raw Unix performance, it is roughly equivalent to a 20-MHz 386 system, but it is much more suited to handling the graphics requirements of a graphical user interface like OpenLook. At roughly $4000, it is obvious choice as a low-end workstation.