A review of the Sun386i

[Mike Newton]

I've just finished brining up a Sun 386i system, and felt that others
might be interested in a review.  Overall, my opinion is: Dont buy one.

Why?	(NOT in order of severity!)

	1.  The keyboard and monitor and CPU are all hooked together w/
a special cable (video and keyboard all in one).  Though I am sure there
are extenders available, the cable is so special that it's guaranteed to
be mega-$.  It also makes placement very hard.

	2. The keyboard  _SUCKS_.  I've used/managed Sun2's, Sun3's and
(briefly) Sun4's.  None of them had such bad keyboards.  It does not even
properly debounce -- so i often get mmanyy repeated charcters.  I no
longer can type a reply to a mail message w/o using the editor.


	3. There is only 1 serial port as opposed to two on the older
suns.  ("Easily fixed by adding PC cards...").  Dont add a modem and a
printer!

	4. The one serial port that exists is BUSTED.   It cant handle
9600, let alone anything faster (say, a telebit).

	5. For tip and similar work, you cant even run at 2400 baud!!!!!
Having tip send 2400 baud from ttya to the console will cause the console
to send ^g's   to the  ttya -- even for one short 70 character line.
("Fixed in 4.0.1").

	6. When talking to sun support:
Me: Could I please talk to someone about the hardware problem
Them: No, we will call you sometime within a WEEK.
Me: Please just give me the number so i can call them.
Them: That would not be very professionnal.
Me: Broken hardware is not very professional!
(In all fairness, they did speed up the handling and i did get someone
who genuinely tried to help... "Fixed in 4.0.1" was the end result though).

	7. Sun OS 4.0 is brain-dead.  And the bugs have already found
their way into the coffin and are having a very nice time eating away at
the corpse.

- mike

ps: in all fairness, i should also point out that i have an _extreme_ bias
against anything that has ...86 in the parts list.