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