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- Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.misc
- Path: sparky!uunet!spool.mu.edu!uwm.edu!daffy!uwvax!grana.cs.wisc.edu!tonyrich
- From: tonyrich@grana.cs.wisc.edu (Tony Rich)
- Subject: Re: What's missing from Q700/Q950?
- Message-ID: <1992Dec16.010447.21850@cs.wisc.edu>
- Sender: news@cs.wisc.edu (The News)
- Organization: University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire -- Computer Science Dept.
- References: <1992Dec12.211420.264@physc1.byu.edu> <1992Dec15.043807.3994@cs.wisc.edu> <antkasx.724439130@gsusgi1.gsu.edu>
- Date: Wed, 16 Dec 1992 01:04:47 GMT
- Lines: 63
-
- Ken Sturrock responds to some of my suggestions for Quadras:
-
- >TR> 3. Video support for 19" color monitors (1024x768) -- 8-bit color.
-
- >>3.) 19 inches!? Learn to conserve screen space, it's good for your soul.
- >> I agree, however that it would be nice, but most of the new "personal
- >> workstations" are using 16" monitors with extra $$$ upgrade to a 19".
-
- Well, we're trying to plan for the future. If we can get 19" monitors in
- the first place, we can write and run some big screen-eating simulations
- and algorithm animations in our computer labs. Maybe someday we could
- try CAD-on-the-cheap. But we'll have to live with those monitors forever;
- the money to upgrade a lab of 16" monitors to 19" will NEVER EVER materialize,
- and 21" monitors are still too expensive.
-
- >TR> 4. Educational pricing at $2000 or less per machine.
-
- >>4.) "Why when I was a youngster we paid $2500 for a Mac SE with 1M of RAM
- >> .....and we liked it!". Seriously, what does a 68040 [chip] cost?
-
- Suggestion #4 is in response to current pricing on the DOS side of the force.
-
- >TR> 5. A/UX right-to-copy licenses for $50 or less per machine (not $290).
-
- >>5.) low-cost A/UX. Nice idea, but seriously. I wonder what Apple has
- >> to pay AT&T for each A/UX license. If UNIX is your goal, and money
- >> is the problem...there are better ways to get UNIX than by turning
- >> a nice spiffy Macintosh into a UNIX machine.
-
- I don't know what UNIX licenses cost Apple. I do know that $290/machine is
- VERY high compared to educational site licenses for a lot of other software,
- which is often $30-50 per machine. (Hey, this is a wish list, right? 8)
-
- One economic argument for having an A/UX Mac lab in a university setting is
- that you can run three software platforms on one hardware platform. We use
- HyperCard and Word in some intro courses, so we need Macs to support that
- and other Mac stuff. At a cost in performance, we can still do our DOS stuff
- on Macs using SoftPC. Third, we can support our upper-level courses that
- use Unix, DEC FUSE, and X-Windows stuff seamlessly on Macs if we have A/UX.
- Finally, having Unix on every instructional machine (including a DEC
- file/cycle/window server or two) makes system administration (like backups
- and file movement) a lot easier than supporting three OS's separately.
-
- All that can be a persuasive argument if you can't afford a lab of pure-Unix
- workstations AND buy a lab of Macs AND upgrade all your old 286 DOS machines,
- which is the situation we're currently in.
-
- >No slams were intended with this, but I think that the spirit of Bill's
- >question was focused on hardware.
-
- Well, okay. But Apple's recent unbundling of software has made buying
- Mac high-end hardware less attractive, especially given that high-end
- PC hardware is *very* attractively priced right now. My suggestions are
- aimed at making the Quadras look better from a holistic standpoint.
- With *loaded* 486 PCs selling for under $2000 (mail-order) and a Quadra 5/0
- at over $3000 educational pricing with no monitor, no keyboard, and no
- interesting software (HyperCard Player is not interesting), we Mac
- evangelists have a credibility problem.
-
- Besides, the Quadra hardware is already pretty wonderful.
- I didn't want to leave bill coderre dangling from an empty thread! ;)
-
- -- Tony
-