Workstation pricing, Sun vs ISA

[Kemp at DOCKMASTER.NCSC.MIL]

Jeffrey Kegler writes:
 > As you were warned, here is a comparison of Sun and ISA pricing.

Yes, but why did you bother.  If you are going to use Sun's price list,
it's only fair to use Big Blue's price list in the comparison.  As you
pointed out, the ISA prices you quoted are street prices, but you didn't
quote street prices for the Sun system.  Sun's list prices, discounted
or not, are irrelevant.

 > 4 MB memory                                      1,600
 > 4 MB memory                                        780
 > CDC Wren V hard disk, 383.3 MB unformatted       2,300

With the Sun system, the CDC Wren V is 702 MB unformatted because the
Sun has a SCSI interface built in.  We paid $3050 for ours, and I got a
later quote for $2550.  As for memory, "parts is parts".  I just got a
quote today, from a Sun vendor, for $145/MB, or $580 for 4MB.

 > If you are getting a Sun, you might as well get a nice 68000 or
 > SPARC box.

Agreed, at least with the SPARC part.  I would be willing to bet that
five years from now, a SPARCStation will be worth a greater percentage
of its purchase price than will the ISA setup you described.

  Dave Kemp <Kemp at dockmaster.ncsc.mil>