Reliability of Sun 3/50's?

[De Clarke x2630]

Organization: UCO/Lick Observatory, UCSC, Santa Cruz, CA 95064 USA

The question before us, as we contemplate acquisition of our sixth and
seventh Sun 3/50-ME-4, is 'to maintain or not to maintain?'.  Has anyone
out there had conclusive experience of the failure rate of 3/50's in a
normal office environment (no a/c, isolation-txformer-type power
conditioning)?  Needless to say Sun's next-day maintenance is rather
costly and we will forgo it if the marketplace says that 3/50's are
super-reliable.  Actually, a mass survey of the reliability of various Sun
products might be in order, I'm sure I'm not the only one who's
interested!

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