waldram@WOLF.UWYO.EDU (10/20/90)
FIRST:
Let me get this straight-- is somebody saying that HP/Apollo will not
provide software upgrades past 10.3 even for my one-year old,
expensive DN10000? That OSF stuff will not be supported in its place?
SR11.x.p will be there. There will also be the "interoperability" with OSF/1 at the
second release of SR11 (ie. you will get some Domain resources).
SECOND:
What is the reason for buying a new DNxx machine? Well, for one the
DN10000 is still a better number cruncher than the new line, especially
if it is programmed effectively (and I hope the new compilers do
better than the pitiful performance of 10.7p) As for upgradability,
the DN10k is fully upgradable at a reasonable cost (for universities
a board swap to the new double speed processor is about $6000, I think,
which puts it cheaper than getting the performance increase by buying
two to four SparcStations). (Memory and disk drives for the 10k are
ruinously expensive, and there is little or no third party market.
I've added three 760 MB drives to our 10K for $1800/each plus $4000 for the
controller. The drives (RECERTIFIED by the manufactured!!!!!!) come from Maxtor
via any number of resellers (we used Workstation Technologies). Memory is another
matter!!! I guess it will never be available from third parties.
-jjw
waldram@grizzly.uwyo.edu
307-766-5351
University of Wyoming