[comp.unix.i386] Toshiba Unix laptop, Comdex, etc.

jgd@rsiatl.UUCP (John G. De Armond) (06/08/90)

wtm@uhura.neoucom.EDU (Bill Mayhew) writes:

>Toshiba also has, available only in Japan, a machine that is based
>on the SPARC CPU chip.  Boy would I love to have one of those.  If

They had these machines front row, center at Comdex.  Promoting the
hell out of them.  Nice!  Excellent paper white screen that is
FAST.  Even made X look good.

>Toshiba imports it to the US, the projected list price is supposed
>to be around $10K (US funds).

Closer to $14k.


THe real showstoppers were the 100 mip I860-based desktop machines.  One
machine had 4 I860s rated at 100 mips, and running Mach, in a package about 
the size of a PS/2 model 30!  Prices to match, unfortunately.  Another 
vendor (UHM?) had a "supertower" I860 box rated at 40 mips with one 860 
priced fully outfitted with a  half gig or so of disk, ethernet and the like,
at $40k.  The best part is that the peripheral bus is EISA!  This is
a separate bus apart from the processor that is designed to allow expansion
with inexpensive PC cards.  What a combination.

BYTE was running an opinion survey and kept a tally on
a large electronic scoreboard.  The main question was "Which OS will
be the dominant one in 1995?"  The very surprising result was DOS and Unix
practically tied with the One Half OS (OS/2) and the others running
surprisingly behind.  And at a DOS-weenie show at that :-)

Everybody and his brother seemed to have optical disk jukeboxes.  Just what
I need - 2 gb online for my news system :-)

The one downer was that Pick, like the measles epidemic, was rearing its 
ugly head again!  Like a bad girlfriend, it'll never go away. Gak!  

This was truely the year of Unix at Comdex.

John
-- 
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