soh@shiva.trl.oz (kam hung soh) (10/01/90)
At the AUUG '90 (Australian UNIX User Group) conference and exhibition, Commodore displayed a A3000UX. This was an A3000 with 8Mb of memory, 100Mb harddisk, UNIX System V Release 4, TCP/IP, Ethernet, TIGA 8 bit display card, and the X Windowing System. Also on display was a standard 150Mb tape drive hanging off the SCSI port. The demonstrator I spoke to was Johann George from the Technology Section. As per new Commodore policy, Johann was reticent about new hardware and software, and about how development in the UNIX area will affect Amiga OS. He was also unwilling to comment on any new chipset or graphic programming interface with regards to Amiga OS. However, he did say that Commodore was doing work on improving the graphic display ability of the Amiga. Johann was also quite willing to speak about UNIX development work, and mentioned some of the effort in cramming Release 4 into 60 - 70 Mb of disk space. To add a human dimension to the legendary exploits of Dave Haynie, Johann mentioned that Dave hardly sleeps and frequently bunks under his favorite computer. The A3000UX had the OpenLook interface on the X Windowing System running on a 19 inch NEC 4D(I think) monitor driven by the Tiga 1000 x 800 (?) graphic board. Disk access speed was poor because of a hard disk crash previously. Graphic display consisted on xterm (VT100 X terminal emulator), ico (X's bouncing ball demo), clock, and a graphical version of a 15 square puzzle. The updating speed the windows was passable, faster than a Sun 3/60 but slower than a SparcStation. A cute feature is the ability to have several login consoles, reminiscent of a terminal switching feature on DECNet (I think). The Commodore Australia representatives verbally quoted me a price of about A$8000.00, with educational institutions paying A$6500.00. However, it would be best to get a written quote, since they did not specify exactly what will be included in the package. AmigaVision was on display, and I had a brief demonstration of how simple it was to create a short presentation. It wasn't the best demonstration of a computer I had seen, but to be fair, none of the vendors at the exhibition were showing anything spectacular. Most of them had X running with ico and xterm. It was so boring that I was tempted to ask the demonstrators the company that supplied the monitors! IBM had its R6000 workstation, DEC with DECstations, Sun with Sparcs, .... Oh, The endless monotony of workstation after workstation! Your intrepid reporter, ----- Soh, Kam Hung email: h.soh@trl.oz.au tel: +61 03 541 6403 Telecom Research Laboratories, P.O. Box 249, Clayton, Victoria 3168, Australia
jet@karazm.math.uh.edu (J. Eric Townsend) (10/01/90)
>The Commodore Australia representatives verbally quoted me a price of >about A$8000.00, with educational institutions paying A$6500.00. What is this in American? American Express's 1-800 number doesn't list Aussie Dollars. -- J. Eric Townsend Internet: jet@uh.edu Bitnet: jet@UHOU Systems Manager - University of Houston Dept. of Mathematics - (713) 749-2120 "It's not the bullet that kills you, it's the hole." Skate UNIX(r) -- Laurie Anderson
MICDH@lure.latrobe.edu.au (David Hird) (10/02/90)
In article <1990Oct1.064306.28222@lavaca.uh.edu>, jet@karazm.math.uh.edu (J. Eric Townsend) writes: >>The Commodore Australia representatives verbally quoted me a price of >>about A$8000.00, with educational institutions paying A$6500.00. > > What is this in American? American Express's 1-800 number doesn't > list Aussie Dollars. What? It doesn't? The Aussie dollar is the 6th most traded currency in the world! ( I believe everything I see on TV :-) Currently it is about 82-83 US cents > > -- > J. Eric Townsend Internet: jet@uh.edu Bitnet: jet@UHOU > Systems Manager - University of Houston Dept. of Mathematics - (713) 749-2120 > "It's not the bullet that kills you, it's the hole." > Skate UNIX(r) -- Laurie Anderson -- David Hird micdh@lure.latrobe.edu.au