Info sought on Sun, Vaxstation and Apollo.

[Ron Baxter]

	We are currently evaluating these graphics workstations
	and are under pressure to decide soon,  We have glossies
	and are arranging demos, but I really would value
	comments from those of you who have already trodden this
	path.  I summarize below my current assessment which is
	leaning towards Vaxstation II/GPX (influenced by prices
	as we see them), and invite you critical reactions,
	together with any additional info that may help.  If
	there are enough reponses I will summarize.

OUR CURRENT SET-UP
	A Vax 750 with BSD 4.2 (4.3 soon) and a Microvax I
	(remember them) connected by Ethernet.  They are used for
	statistical data analysis (S, Genstat, Minitab),
	mathematical word processing (TeX, LaTeX) and fortran
	programming (IMSL, etc).

REQUIREMENTS
	Another CPU (Microvax or equiv) to take some interactive
	load off the 750, and a Graphics Workstation with 8
	bit-planes for research on image analysis -- mainly
	studying techniques for enhancement of raster images.

CONFIGURATIONS UNDER CONSIDERATION
	- a Microvax II for interactive users, together with
	either a Sun 3 (110 or 160) , or a Vaxstation II/GPX, or
	an Apollo DN 570.

	- a SUN 160FS for interactive users and to act as a
	fileserver for a diskless 110C (or 160C)

OUR ASSESSMENT SO FAR
	For the interactive users the Microvax II is the simplest
	solution since the binaries are compatible with the 750,
	while the Sun 3 160FS is easily workable and would make
	sense if we are likely to buy a number of Sun
	Workstations from here on.

	APOLLO.  This is currently trailing our field for 2
	reasons.  Firstly, the different networks.  Can NFS or
	equivalent be run between the Vaxes and the Apollo?, if
	so what costs are there for the software to do this?, how
	fast and effective is this Ethernet gateway from the
	Apollo token ring network?  Secondly, the different
	ancestry of the UNIX on Apollo (Domain/IX) which is not
	a direct descendant of BSD 4.2 like SunOS and ULTRIX.
	This makes me suspect that porting existing software
	could be harder.  For example, do S and TeX run on
	Apollo?, have others found the shifting of C and f77
	programs from vax/4.2 to Apollo easy, or is it full of
	hidden gotchas?

	Sun 3.  First let me say that Australian prices for Sun
	seem relatively higher than elsewhere (as far as I can
	gather).  Thus the Sun 3 110C + SCSI seems a little
	cheaper than a Vaxstation II/GPX but not much.  But the
	110 cannot accommodate a Graphics processor, this would
	apparently require a 160C and the price is considerably
	higher.  So how important is the GP for our application
	(ie displaying and manipulating a series of raster
	images)?

	Vaxstation II/GPX.  Does it have graphics performance
	that is equivalent to a Sun 3 + GP (we get the impression
	it does)?  NFS is currently not available on ULTRIX but
	we believe it will be soon (is this true? and how soon?)
	There are currently no diskless Vaxstations and I don't
	know if they are planned, but does this matter if the
	RD5? disks are cheap enough.  Are the applications where
	the Sun is clearly better than Vaxstation?   Have
	Vaxstation owners found the availability of software to
	be poor?, for example are there TeX previewers, graphics
	support for S, etc.

	Thanks for your patience, and I look forward to some
	interesting responses
--
Ron Baxter, CSIRO Div Maths & Stats, PO Box 218, Lindfield, NSW, Australia.
PHONE:	+61 2 467 6059			ACSNET:	ronb at natmlab.oz		
ARPA: ronb%natmlab.oz at seismo.css.gov	
UUCP:	....{seismo,hplabs,mcvax,ukc,nttlab}!munnari!natmlab.oz!ronb

-- 
Ron Baxter, CSIRO Div Maths & Stats, PO Box 218, Lindfield, NSW, Australia.
PHONE:	+61 2 467 6059			ACSNET:	ronb at natmlab.oz		
ARPA: ronb%natmlab.oz at seismo.css.gov	
UUCP:	....{seismo,hplabs,mcvax,ukc,nttlab}!munnari!natmlab.oz!ronb