mbkennel@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Matthew B. Kennel) (05/05/89)
This should really be in e-mail, but it's bounced back faster than a superball. I'm thinking of getting a workstation, primarily for scientific computation. I was thinking originally of the NeXT machine, but it seems like there are better things coming out, especially for hard-core floating point performance. Right now for my thesis, I've been spoiled by using a Personal Iris workstation, which for my application, is twice as fast as a VAX 8700, and slightly faster than a Convex C120, even when fully vectorized. The Iris is out of my price range ($20K+), but I really don't need all the fancy color graphics. What I want is something like a NeXT: monochrome screen, medium-sized disk (~100 MB), and appropriate amount of memory(8 mb I guess). How does floating point compare to a DEC 3100? Price? I'm probably going to have to go for the lowest end machine. For the vendors: What would be the price on a DG workstation as described above, with and without educational discount? What kind of system software does it come with? Is it BSD or SYSV based? (which is it _really_?) Is X windows included? (i.e. a working, compatible server) How close is the OS to common "industry standards"? Is it possible for individuals to purchase, or can it only work through a department/purchasing officer? Can one get third-party memory or disk drives, e.g. do Macintosh RAM modules and SCSI drives work with it? For the users who have one: What's it like? Does it work as advertised? How much did you really have to pay? Much thanks, Matt Kennel mbkennel@phoenix.princeton.edu
rec@dg.dg.com (Robert Cousins) (05/05/89)
In article <8142@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> mbkennel@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Matthew B. Kennel) writes: >This should really be in e-mail, but it's bounced back faster than a superball. > > I'm thinking of getting a workstation, primarily for scientific >computation. . . . <explaination of what he needs and how well his jobs run on various machines> >The Iris is out of my price range ($20K+), but I really don't need >all the fancy color graphics. What I want is something like a >NeXT: > monochrome screen, medium-sized disk (~100 MB), and appropriate amount >of memory(8 mb I guess). > >For the vendors: > What would be the price on a DG workstation as described above, with >and without educational discount? The AViiON AVX 300 (bottom of the line) with 8 Megs of RAM, 160 Meg disk, 150 Mb tape, DG/UX 4.1, X-11, etc. would cost $14295 retail. This also includes the complete documentation package, 19" 70Hz monitor (1280 x 1024), keyboard, mouse, etc. >What kind of system software does it come with? DG/UX 4.1 (the latest revision) Full System V commands set C compiler X-11 R 3 NFS TCP/IP >Is it BSD or SYSV based? (which is it _really_?) DG/UX is a from scratch redesign of the kernel. It is SVID compliant and supports all 4.3 BSD calls except the quota calls. >Is X windows included? (i.e. a working, compatible server) Yes. X11r3 >How close is the OS to common "industry standards"? DG/UX 4.1 is 88/open ABI compliant. It will run applications developed on any ABI compliant product. There are currently more than 45 developers working to this standard. >Is it possible for individuals to purchase, or can it only work through >a department/purchasing officer? If you want to purchase retail, just contact your local DG office. If you wish to participate in the Design/Win program, you should probably work through your purchasing officer. The Design/Win program gives a substantial discount from list to selected software developers. You may qualify. For more information concerning Design/Win, contact Sandy Friedman at (508)870-9764. >Can one get third-party memory or disk drives, e.g. do Macintosh RAM >modules and SCSI drives work with it? The AVX workstations us a 4 megabyte RAM module developed by DG which is not currently sourced by another company. (Just wait a while. :-) As for SCSI devices, the software is designed to allow third party SCSI peripherals to be integrated with "a high probability of success" though obviously the diskman menus do not have entries for everyone's favorite SCSI disks. > >Much thanks, >Matt Kennel > >mbkennel@phoenix.princeton.edu Robert Cousins Dept. Mgr, Workstation Dev't. Data General Corp Speaking for myself alone.