Risc System/6000

[Richard A. Schafer]

Reading the Wall Street Journal this morning, I saw the IBM ad
(3 full pages) for the new systems, and finally found the
fine print that describes what you get for the oft-quoted
$12,995 price. 

PowerStation 320 with 8MB of RAM
120MB disk
19" grayscale display and graphics adapter
keyboard
mouse
Ethernet adapter
AIX
"user interface environment" (I don't think this means X-windows,
    but don't know what it *does* refer to.)
NFS (it's part of AIX, I think)
hypertext document search & retrieval capability.  (I think this
    means the software support for hypertext; it clearly does not
    refer to the CD-ROM player.

While there may be questions about how much use a 120MB disk 
systems is standalone, as a workstation connected to a server,
this sounds like it could be quite interesting.  While I wasn't
able to come up with this price in any configuration I did
yesterday, I have no doubt that the price is real.

There have been lots of comments about whether IBM is serious
or not in this market.  Can anyone post the commercial prices
of an equivalently-powered workstation for comparison?  

My October 1, 1989 SUN pricelist quotes

SparcStation 1 (4/60M1-8-P3)
104MB SCSI internal disk
1.44 diskette drive
19" Mono monitor
8MB RAM                           $11,495

SunOS Current Standard Release
  (no manuals) (SS2-13)           $   450
SparcStation 1 Full System 
   Documentation Set (SS-09)      $   450
                                  -------
                                  $12,395

(I presume this includes a keyboard and mouse, even though
the price book doesn't mention it.  Although we have lots
of Sun's, I don't usually do the configurations myself.)

Given the performance numbers quoted by IBM of the PowerStation
320 versus a SparcStation 1, the fact that the above price has
a *smaller* disk than the one claimed to be totally useless by
Dan Ehrlich, and that the IBM price for AIX includes software
support services (if I read the Sun price list right, an 
equivalent level of software support to IBM's would cost you 
$95/month = $1140/year, almost the price of AIX every year),
plus a longer warranty on the IBM equipment (1 year versus
90 days on Sun's), my calculations seem to suggest that the
(much?)-less-powerful SparcStation 1 actually costs a little bit *more*
then the equivalently configured PowerStation 320.

That's the only prices I have available.  Anyone else care to
provide DEC, etc., equivalents?

Richard