lester@suphys.physics.su.OZ.AU (K R Lester) (05/07/91)
I am considering buying an ARC, however although brought up on ACORN's BBC OS, I have to admit I prefer the elegance of Unix. Living in this country (OZ) makes getting info difficult, so I know almost nothing about the ARC Unix boxes. Can someone with a few spare moments at acorn, or anyone for that matter, enlighten me about the following points. (Feel free to add any extra observations) a) What are the unix boxes available and their specs? b) How do they comapre to the A540 say. c) Do they also come with RiscOS (ie can I run them as unix/RiscOS just by rebooting, including normal podule use etc) d) Is it easy/possible to write drivers for the unsupported RISC-OS podules under unix (I know this is a loaded question) e) Which version of unix is it. .. And don't say RiscIX (:-)). f) Is it to all intents and purposes like any other unix - ie no little hidden features/ implementation botches :-). g) What is approx UK cost of the unix boxes (with say 100Meg SCSI) h) Monitor costs? i) I've heard that there was a problem with the cursor on large screens due to a Vidc bug. Is this still a problem? j) Does anyone know when the next nonexistant series of machines will be hypothetically coming into real existance? I appreciate any help/suggestions offered Kim -- _______________________________________________________________________________ I lester@physics.su.oz.au I DOS - the original computer virus. Kim Lester: Dept. High Energy Physics, I Sydney University, I OS/2 on PS/2 - half an operating Down Under I system on half a computer. _______________________________________________________________________________
thsa@rhi.hi.is (Thorvaldur S Arnarson) (05/09/91)
In article <1991May7.032554.7526@metro.ucc.su.OZ.AU> lester@suphys.physics.su.OZ.AU (K R Lester) writes: |I am considering buying an ARC, however although brought up on ACORN's |BBC OS, I have to admit I prefer the elegance of Unix. [questions deleted] IMHO you should be very concerned about FP performace. From your .sig you sound like the type (high energy physics) who every now and then runs a FP intensive simulation job. The ARM2 with FPemulator (no HW) does 11Kflops and the sickeningly expensive HW (I seem to remember something like 800 pounds) available for A4xx (don't know whether it fits in an A5xx) only does a petty 100Kflops (someone correct me if I'm far off)! B.t.w. Here in Iceland, Digital's distibutor just advertised a 17 mips DECstation with 1???x1??? screen, HW FP, twin 200Mb SCSI disks etc... FOR THE SAME PRICE AS R260!!!!!!! (quoted from memory, could dig out the ad if pushed sufficiently). Would someone at Acorn like to tell the rest of us whether they are going to get real about marketing or just fade out. Even the firmest beleivers will start loosing faith real soon now. -- thsa@rhi.hi.is (Thorvaldur S. Arnarson) Microscopic .sig rules! :-) *<-<