[comp.sys.pyramid] Submission for mod-computers-pyramid

uucp@uvacs.UUCP.UUCP (04/24/87)

Path: uvacs!virginia!umd5!brl-adm!seismo!columbia!rutgers!ames!ucbcad!ucbvax!OKC-UNIX.ARPA!cal
From: cal@OKC-UNIX.ARPA (Charles Leach)
Newsgroups: mod.computers.pyramid
Subject: Pyramid RAM
Message-ID: <8704232123.AA06319@okc-unix.ARPA>
Date: 23 Apr 87 23:23:24 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Distribution: world
Organization: The ARPA Internet
Lines: 7

I agree with the previous comment by Mr. Berger about Pyramid memory
prices. We recently checked into memory board costs for our 98XE. The
quoted price (GSA) was $12000 per four megabyte array. I also would
be interested in hearing about any other sources for memory products
for the 98X/XE.

charles leach (cal@okc-unix)

uucp@uvacs.UUCP.UUCP (04/25/87)

Path: uvacs!virginia!umd5!eneevax!mimsy!seismo!rutgers!ames!ucbcad!ucbvax!EE.UCLA.EDU!bake
From: bake@EE.UCLA.EDU (Dr Rich Baker)
Newsgroups: mod.computers.pyramid
Subject: Re:  Pyramid RAM
Message-ID: <8704232302.AA01782@ee.UCLA.EDU>
Date: 23 Apr 87 23:02:39 GMT
Sender: uucp@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Distribution: world
Organization: The ARPA Internet
Lines: 6

$12,000 for 4 Meg?!  Let's see, a 4 Meg, 1.5 MIP Sun 3/50 now goes for
under $5k list... 

Anyone in Pyramid marketing looked at the price of their competition lately?

Rich Baker  (bake@ee.ucla.edu)

uucp@uvacs.UUCP.UUCP (04/25/87)

Path: uvacs!virginia!umd5!brl-adm!seismo!columbia!rutgers!ames!ucbcad!ucbvax!PRINCETON.EDU!barry
From: barry@PRINCETON.EDU (Barry Lustig)
Newsgroups: mod.computers.pyramid
Subject: Re: Pyramid RAM
Message-ID: <8704240054.AA04324@mind.Princeton.EDU>
Date: 24 Apr 87 00:54:46 GMT
References: <8704232302.AA01782@ee.UCLA.EDU>
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Distribution: world
Organization: The ARPA Internet
Lines: 14


    $12,000 for 4 Meg?!  Let's see, a 4 Meg, 1.5 MIP Sun 3/50 now goes for
    under $5k list... 

    Anyone in Pyramid marketing looked at the price of their competition 
    lately?

    Rich Baker  (bake@ee.ucla.edu)

I recently got a quote for 2nd source Sun memory.  They are offering
a 12 Meg board for a bit over $4,000.  Maybe Pyramid has it 
backwards :-)

Barry Lustig

uucp@uvacs.UUCP.UUCP (04/25/87)

Path: uvacs!virginia!umd5!brl-adm!seismo!rutgers!clyde!cbatt!osu-eddie!sppy00!cml
From: cml@sppy00.UUCP (Christopher Lott)
Newsgroups: mod.computers.pyramid
Subject: know of a TEX for the pyramid?
Keywords: tex pyramid
Message-ID: <142@sppy00.UUCP>
Date: 23 Apr 87 21:09:05 GMT
Reply-To: cml@sppy00.UUCP (Christopher Lott)
Distribution: na
Organization: Online Computer Library Center, Dublin, Ohio.
Lines: 11

As the subject line says, does anyone know of a vendor I could contact
who makes a TEX package for a pyramid machine?  We already have tex on
another system, and are considering evaluating packages for our pyramid.

Thanks in advance!

chris...

Christopher Lott (cml@sppy00.UUCP or ...cbosgd!osu-eddie!sppy00!cml)
OCLC = Online Computer Library Center, Dublin, Ohio  "Services for Libraries"
       6565 Frantz Road  43017		(me: 614-764-6260)

uucp@uvacs.UUCP.UUCP (04/25/87)

Path: uvacs!virginia!umd5!brl-adm!seismo!ut-sally!im4u!rutgers!ames!ucbcad!ucbvax!FLASH.BELLCORE.COM!karn
From: karn@FLASH.BELLCORE.COM (Phil R. Karn)
Newsgroups: mod.computers.pyramid
Subject: Re: Pyramid RAM
Message-ID: <8704241516.AA11387@flash.bellcore.com>
Date: 24 Apr 87 15:16:28 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Distribution: world
Organization: The ARPA Internet
Lines: 6


        Last time I looked, Pyramid had no competition in memory sales for their        machines.  The market is (or was) too small to interest the 3rd party
        memory industry.  Also, Pyramid's memory price is not out of line with what
        other companies charge for memories when they have no competition.  How do
        you think they sell the CPU's so cheap?
                                                        Dave Sincoskie

uucp@uvacs.UUCP.UUCP (04/25/87)

Path: uvacs!virginia!umd5!brl-adm!seismo!ut-sally!im4u!rutgers!ames!ucbcad!ucbvax!uvacs.UUCP!uucp
From: uucp@uvacs.UUCP (UNIX-to-UNIX Copy)
Newsgroups: mod.computers.pyramid
Subject: Submission for mod-computers-pyramid
Message-ID: <8704241130.AA09504@uvacs.cs.virginia.edu>
Date: 24 Apr 87 11:30:07 GMT
Sender: uucp@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Distribution: world
Organization: The ARPA Internet
Lines: 18

Path: uvacs!virginia!umd5!brl-adm!seismo!columbia!rutgers!ames!ucbcad!ucbvax!OKC-UNIX.ARPA!cal
From: cal@OKC-UNIX.ARPA (Charles Leach)
Newsgroups: mod.computers.pyramid
Subject: Pyramid RAM
Message-ID: <8704232123.AA06319@okc-unix.ARPA>
Date: 23 Apr 87 23:23:24 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Distribution: world
Organization: The ARPA Internet
Lines: 7

I agree with the previous comment by Mr. Berger about Pyramid memory
prices. We recently checked into memory board costs for our 98XE. The
quoted price (GSA) was $12000 per four megabyte array. I also would
be interested in hearing about any other sources for memory products
for the 98X/XE.

charles leach (cal@okc-unix)

uucp@uvacs.UUCP.UUCP (04/26/87)

Path: uvacs!virginia!umd5!brl-adm!seismo!esosun!ucsdhub!sdcsvax!ucbvax!pyrnj.UUCP!romain
From: romain@pyrnj.UUCP (Romain Kang)
Newsgroups: mod.computers.pyramid
Subject: Re:  Pyramid RAM
Message-ID: <8704250414.AA08658@pyrnj.uucp>
Date: 25 Apr 87 04:14:31 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Distribution: world
Organization: The ARPA Internet
Lines: 58

I guess someone from Pyramid's going to have to bite eventually.
Might as well be me.  I'm sorry this is a little long, but I don't
have official, canned answers.

As a lowly systems engineer out in field, I shouldn't pretend that I
know what the strategic marketing motivations might be.  However, the
philosophy that I've always been presented has been one of building a
real, working system for less, rather than just a cheaper CPU.  In
this respect, I must say that we have indeed been looking at our
competition.

Since info-pyramid is a now Usenet newsgroup as well as a mailing list,
I don't feel it would be in good taste for me to broadcast competetive
pricing figures, but I can mail them out to people who request them.  To
compare ourselves with the market leader in superminis, Digital Equipment,
though, I've come up with a 1.8-1.9 price/performance advantage if you
compare a couple of Pyramid 9820 configurations against equivalent VAX
8800 configurations.  (And some small benchmarks I've seen indicate
that we're extremely competitive performance-wise; anyone have an Ultrix
2.0 8700 or 8800 we can rent for a day for more thorough benchmarks?)

The obvious conclusion might be that DEC 8800's are grossly overpriced,
right?  Well, since Digital is the market leader, Pyramid has to fight
the perception that since we're much less expensive, we must be some
newfangled product put together in a garage by college dropouts
(oops, sorry Steve and Steve...)  In light of this, I've often felt
Pyramid systems are actually underpriced.

But if you look beyond the price of a brand new system, I do feel
$12000 is shocking, especially for the people who and bought their
Pyramids early on and have remained loyal customers.  I can only
comment that that's a price that people pay for the rapid evolution of
computers -- if things are advancing so fast (or receding, like memory
prices), you pay to be at the bleeding edge.  Witness, for example, the
people with early versions of Apple's Macintosh, who are paying for
their upgrades or otherwise getting stranded.  And the companies that
I'm mentioning, DEC and Apple, are GOOD companies.

A word about Sun:  They are not our competition.  Sun and Pyramid are
allies in the UNIX world.  Note that we follow Sun standards like NFS,
and that we've recently signed an OEM agreement with them.  However,
maybe it isn't quite fair to compare Sun memory with Pyramid memory;
except for the Sun 3/2xx series, Sun uses parity-checked memory rather
than ECC (which all Pyramid boards use).  Nothing wrong with that for
workstations with up to 8-12M of memory, but if you're up in the
64-128M range, my friends, the odds may be against you.

Take heart, though.  Pyramid has been adjusting prices.  Just a year
ago, a 4M memory board was almost $20000.  Today, a 16M board is $40000.
Who knows what the pricing people upstairs will dream up next?  There's
no way the prices could go up any further...

PS. Watch for a press announcement Pyramid's going to make in a few weeks.
--
Romain Kang, Pyramid Technology Corporation
US Mail:	10 Woodbridge Center Drive, Woodbridge, NJ  07095
Ma Bell:	(201) 750-2626
UUCPnet:	{allegra,cmcl2,mirror,pyramid,rutgers}!pyrnj!romain

uucp@uvacs.UUCP.UUCP (04/26/87)

Path: uvacs!virginia!umd5!brl-adm!seismo!esosun!ucsdhub!sdcsvax!ucbvax!datacube.UUCP!berger
From: berger@datacube.UUCP (Bob Berger)
Newsgroups: mod.computers.pyramid
Subject: Re:  Pyramid RAM
Message-ID: <8704240154.AA11658@datacube.UUCP>
Date: 24 Apr 87 01:54:05 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Distribution: world
Organization: The ARPA Internet
Lines: 26

>From mirror!mit-eddie!@EDDIE.MIT.EDU:bake@ee.UCLA.EDU Thu Apr 23 20:06:32 1987
>$12,000 for 4 Meg?!  Let's see, a 4 Meg, 1.5 MIP Sun 3/50 now goes for
>under $5k list... 
>
>Anyone in Pyramid marketing looked at the price of their competition lately?
>
>Rich Baker  (bake@ee.ucla.edu)
>
Exactly my point.  And that is what has happend here at Datacube. For the
price of a 4Meg memory card from pyramid, we can have 3 Sun 3/50's and some
change left over (we are a Sun OEM).

Once you start putting Sun diskless nodes on, you want good sun servers and
it reduces the need even more for the Pyramid!

I like Pyramid, our 90x has served us faithfully for 3 years. I still 
recommend it highly for folks who need lots of tty ports for lots of
simultaneous users, but I think Pyramid is loosing its competative edge
in terms of pricing.  They are gouging their customer base.

				Bob Berger 

Datacube Inc. Systems / Software Group	4 Dearborn Rd. Peabody, Ma 01960
VOICE:	617-535-6644;	FAX: (617) 535-5643;  TWX: (710) 347-0125
UUCP:	ihnp4!datacube!berger
	{seismo,cbosgd,cuae2,mit-eddie}!mirror!datacube!berger

uucp@edison.ge.COM.UUCP (04/29/87)

Path: edison!uvacs!virginia!umd5!brl-adm!seismo!rochester!pt.cs.cmu.edu!cadre!pitt!darth!investor!rbp
From: rbp@investor.UUCP (Bob Peirce)
Newsgroups: mod.computers.pyramid,comp.emacs
Subject: Re: MicroEMACS on the Pyramid 90x (unresolved symbols)
Message-ID: <830@investor.UUCP>
Date: 24 Apr 87 23:27:36 GMT
References: <206@cideq3.CIDNET.COM>
Organization: Cookson, Peirce & Co., Pittsburgh, PA
Lines: 14
Posted: Fri Apr 24 18:27:36 1987

> running into problems
> with undefined and/or unresolved externals.  Can anyone offer a painless
> solution to this problem?  I have tried using make with -DV7, -DBSD, etc.

Makefile.dist in the recent distribution did not include all the source
files.  Add all the *.c and *.o files to the appropriate lists.  Then
modify the *.h files as required to define; eg, whether you are USG
using termcap and storing your local suff in /usr/local/bin -- you know
the routine.  Then try make again.  It worked fine for me on an altos 3068.

-- 
Bob Peirce, Pittsburgh, PA				 412-471-5320
uucp: ...!{allegra, bellcore, cadre, idis, psuvax1}!pitt!investor!rbp
	    NOTE:  Mail must be < 30K  bytes/message

uucp@edison.ge.COM (UNIX-to-UNIX Copy) (04/29/87)

Path: edison!uvacs!virginia!umd5!eneevax!mimsy!oddjob!uwvax!rutgers!sri-spam!ames!ucbcad!ucbvax!hslrswi.UUCP!uucp
From: uucp@hslrswi.UUCP (Uucp)
Newsgroups: mod.computers.pyramid
Subject: (none)
Message-ID: <8704260526.AA19121@hslrswi.hasler>
Date: 27 Apr 87 22:47:46 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Distribution: world
Organization: The ARPA Internet
Lines: 21

the parts for. The backplane costs about $500, plus a couple of hours' labour

Path: hslrswi!cernvax!mcvax!seismo!ut-sally!im4u!rutgers!ames!ucbcad!ucbvax!FLA
From: karn@FLASH.BELLCORE.COM (Phil R. Karn)
Newsgroups: mod.computers.pyramid
Subject: Re: Pyramid RAM
Message-ID: <8704241516.AA11387@flash.bellcore.com>
Date: 24 Apr 87 15:16:28 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Distribution: world
Organization: The ARPA Internet
Lines: 6



        Last time I looked, Pyramid had no competition in memory sales for thei
mall to interest the 3rd party
        memory industry.  Also, Pyramid's memory price is not out of line with
        other companies charge for memories when they have no competition.  How
        you think they sell the CPU's so cheap?
                                                        Dave Sincoskie

uucp@edison.ge.COM (UNIX-to-UNIX Copy) (04/29/87)

Path: edison!uvacs!virginia!umd5!eneevax!mimsy!oddjob!uwvax!rutgers!ames!ucbcad!ucbvax!hslrswi.UUCP!uucp
From: uucp@hslrswi.UUCP (Uucp)
Newsgroups: mod.computers.pyramid
Subject: (none)
Message-ID: <8704260504.AA18513@hslrswi.hasler>
Date: 27 Apr 87 23:35:13 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Distribution: world
Organization: The ARPA Internet
Lines: 20

There are some telescope makers
Path: hslrswi!cernvax!mcvax!seismo!columbia!rutgers!ames!ucbcad!ucbvax!OKC-UNIX
From: cal@OKC-UNIX.ARPA (Charles Leach)
Newsgroups: mod.computers.pyramid
Subject: Pyramid RAM
Message-ID: <8704232123.AA06319@okc-unix.ARPA>
Date: 23 Apr 87 23:23:24 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Distribution: world
Organization: The ARPA Internet
Lines: 7


I agree with the previous comment by Mr. Berger about Pyramid memory
prices. We recently checked into memory board costs for our 98XE. The
quoted price (GSA) was $12000 per four megabyte array. I also would
be interested in hearing about any other sources for memory products
for the 98X/XE.

charles leach (cal@okc-unix)

uucp@edison.ge.COM (UNIX-to-UNIX Copy) (04/29/87)

Path: edison!uvacs!virginia!umd5!eneevax!mimsy!seismo!rutgers!ames!ucbcad!ucbvax!hslrswi.UUCP!uucp
From: uucp@hslrswi.UUCP (Uucp)
Newsgroups: mod.computers.pyramid
Subject: (none)
Message-ID: <8704260526.AA19128@hslrswi.hasler>
Date: 28 Apr 87 00:49:01 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Distribution: world
Organization: The ARPA Internet
Lines: 32

the parts for. The backplane costs about $500, plus a couple of hours' labour

Path: hslrswi!cernvax!mcvax!seismo!ut-sally!im4u!rutgers!ames!ucbcad!ucbvax!uva
From: uucp@uvacs.UUCP (UNIX-to-UNIX Copy)
Newsgroups: mod.computers.pyramid
Subject: Submission for mod-computers-pyramid
Message-ID: <8704241130.AA09504@uvacs.cs.virginia.edu>
Date: 24 Apr 87 11:30:07 GMT
Sender: uucp@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Distribution: world
Organization: The ARPA Internet
Lines: 18


Path: uvacs!virginia!umd5!brl-adm!seismo!columbia!rutgers!ames!ucbcad!ucbvax!OK
From: cal@OKC-UNIX.ARPA (Charles Leach)
Newsgroups: mod.computers.pyramid
Subject: Pyramid RAM
Message-ID: <8704232123.AA06319@okc-unix.ARPA>
Date: 23 Apr 87 23:23:24 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Distribution: world
Organization: The ARPA Internet
Lines: 7

I agree with the previous comment by Mr. Berger about Pyramid memory
prices. We recently checked into memory board costs for our 98XE. The
quoted price (GSA) was $12000 per four megabyte array. I also would
be interested in hearing about any other sources for memory products
for the 98X/XE.

charles leach (cal@okc-unix)

uucp@edison.ge.COM (UNIX-to-UNIX Copy) (04/29/87)

Path: edison!uvacs!virginia!umd5!cvl!mimsy!oddjob!uwvax!rutgers!ucla-cs!ames!ucbcad!ucbvax!hslrswi.UUCP!uucp
From: uucp@hslrswi.UUCP (Uucp)
Newsgroups: mod.computers.pyramid
Subject: (none)
Message-ID: <8704260543.AA19654@hslrswi.hasler>
Date: 28 Apr 87 02:02:44 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Distribution: world
Organization: The ARPA Internet
Lines: 73

Pyramids early on and have remained loyal customers.  I can only
comment that that's a price that people pay for the rapid evolution of
computers -- if things are advancing so fast
Path: hslrswi!cernvax!mcvax!seismo!esosun!ucsdhub!sdcsvax!ucbvax!pyrnj.UUCP!rom
From: romain@pyrnj.UUCP (Romain Kang)
Newsgroups: mod.computers.pyramid
Subject: Re:  Pyramid RAM
Message-ID: <8704250414.AA08658@pyrnj.uucp>
Date: 25 Apr 87 04:14:31 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Distribution: world
Organization: The ARPA Internet
Lines: 58


I guess someone from Pyramid's going to have to bite eventually.
Might as well be me.  I'm sorry this is a little long, but I don't
have official, canned answers.

As a lowly systems engineer out in field, I shouldn't pretend that I
know what the strategic marketing motivations might be.  However, the
philosophy that I've always been presented has been one of building a
real, working system for less, rather than just a cheaper CPU.  In
this respect, I must say that we have indeed been looking at our
competition.

Since info-pyramid is a now Usenet newsgroup as well as a mailing list,
I don't feel it would be in good taste for me to broadcast competetive
pricing figures, but I can mail them out to people who request them.  To
compare ourselves with the market leader in superminis, Digital Equipment,
though, I've come up with a 1.8-1.9 price/performance advantage if you
compare a couple of Pyramid 9820 configurations against equivalent VAX
8800 configurations.  (And some small benchmarks I've seen indicate
that we're extremely competitive performance-wise; anyone have an Ultrix
2.0 8700 or 8800 we can rent for a day for more thorough benchmarks?)

The obvious conclusion might be that DEC 8800's are grossly overpriced,
right?  Well, since Digital is the market leader, Pyramid has to fight
the perception that since we're much less expensive, we must be some
newfangled product put together in a garage by college dropouts
(oops, sorry Steve and Steve...)  In light of this, I've often felt
Pyramid systems are actually underpriced.

But if you look beyond the price of a brand new system, I do feel
$12000 is shocking, especially for the people who and bought their
Pyramids early on and have remained loyal customers.  I can only
comment that that's a price that people pay for the rapid evolution of
computers -- if things are advancing so fast (or receding, like memory
prices), you pay to be at the bleeding edge.  Witness, for example, the
people with early versions of Apple's Macintosh, who are paying for
their upgrades or otherwise getting stranded.  And the companies that
I'm mentioning, DEC and Apple, are GOOD companies.

A word about Sun:  They are not our competition.  Sun and Pyramid are
allies in the UNIX world.  Note that we follow Sun standards like NFS,
and that we've recently signed an OEM agreement with them.  However,
maybe it isn't quite fair to compare Sun memory with Pyramid memory;
except for the Sun 3/2xx series, Sun uses parity-checked memory rather
than ECC (which all Pyramid boards use).  Nothing wrong with that for
workstations with up to 8-12M of memory, but if you're up in the
64-128M range, my friends, the odds may be against you.

Take heart, though.  Pyramid has been adjusting prices.  Just a year
ago, a 4M memory board was almost $20000.  Today, a 16M board is $40000.
Who knows what the pricing people upstairs will dream up next?  There's
no way the prices could go up any further...

PS. Watch for a press announcement Pyramid's going to make in a few weeks.
--
Romain Kang, Pyramid Technology Corporation
US Mail:        10 Woodbridge Center Drive, Woodbridge, NJ  07095
Ma Bell:        (201) 750-2626
UUCPnet:        {allegra,cmcl2,mirror,pyramid,rutgers}!pyrnj!romain

root@perdix.lu.se.UUCP (04/29/87)

Path: perdix!agaton!enea!mcvax!seismo!rochester!pt.cs.cmu.edu!cadre!pitt!darth!investor!rbp
From: rbp@investor.UUCP (Bob Peirce)
Newsgroups: mod.computers.pyramid,comp.emacs
Subject: Re: MicroEMACS on the Pyramid 90x (unresolved symbols)
Message-ID: <830@investor.UUCP>
Date: 24 Apr 87 23:27:36 GMT
References: <206@cideq3.CIDNET.COM>
Organization: Cookson, Peirce & Co., Pittsburgh, PA
Lines: 14
Posted: Fri Apr 24 18:27:36 1987

> running into problems
> with undefined and/or unresolved externals.  Can anyone offer a painless
> solution to this problem?  I have tried using make with -DV7, -DBSD, etc.

Makefile.dist in the recent distribution did not include all the source
files.  Add all the *.c and *.o files to the appropriate lists.  Then
modify the *.h files as required to define; eg, whether you are USG
using termcap and storing your local suff in /usr/local/bin -- you know
the routine.  Then try make again.  It worked fine for me on an altos 3068.

-- 
Bob Peirce, Pittsburgh, PA				 412-471-5320
uucp: ...!{allegra, bellcore, cadre, idis, psuvax1}!pitt!investor!rbp
	    NOTE:  Mail must be < 30K  bytes/message