wjs@milton.u.washington.edu (William Jon Shipley) (04/03/91)
There's been some speculation on making a 2-processor machine using the residual 030 after an 040 upgrade, or buying a monitor and power supply and getting a whole nother cube. Some of this speculation was of the form, "Is it moral?" There has also been speculation that NeXT might repackage the 030s in slabs and sell them at a lower price. I don't speak for NeXT, but I've spoken to some people at NeXT. It turns out the 030s will be used to fix non-upgraded 030s that are still in the field. The figure I was given was that they want 7 years worth of parts to keep the remaining boards running. (Now, if these were cars we might be a little surprised at them re-using parts to fix broken ones, but let's face it, chips just don't wear down very much.) So, basically, if you keep the 030 you'll possibly be forcing NeXT to do some re-tooling so they can crank out 030 boards, rather than making new machines. It's left as an exercise to the reader to decide if this constitutes a moral action, or even a smart one; that is, hurting the company whose computer you just invested in. As for the repackaging of the 030s, besides the above evidence I'd like to say, "I doubt it." The NeXTstation board doesn't look very much like the 030 board; it has room for a power supply and floppy disk and hard disk. Also, NeXT seems to be a company that strives to impress with its advances, rather than regresses. Unlike certain companies whose names start with "A", they don't sell old hardware at a high price, and then sell slightly newer hardware (that costs them only slightly more) at twice the profit margin. Really, how much more do 040s cost than 030s? It can't be the thousands of dollars difference that's reflected in, say, Apple's pricing. Or is it just so much more difficult to put all those little pins on the 040 in the right holes? I'd much rather see NeXT continue to sell the best available hardware at the lowest possible price. -w DISCLAIMER: My opinions aren't necessarily those of AT&T. I don't even work for them.