25 Jan
2002
25 Jan
'02
1:58 p.m.
I never tried a comparison between the vastly overpriced PS/2's and the DEC
stuff, but they apparently played in the same ballpark. Unfortunately, the
PS/2 series was vastly outperformed by PC/AT clones sporting 20 MHz and even
25 MHz '286's (I still have one of the latter.) at a teensy fraction of the
price of a slow PS/2.
My 25 MHz '286 w/IIT '287 and 8 MB of RAM cost about $400 including the box,
keyboard, etc. I got the pair of 1.2 GB drives as discontinued sample stock
from the Maxtor salesman. Those were pretty big, fast
drives (and could keep
your coffee warm all day) for the time. The controller cost
$188. Comparable
drives cost about $3k back then, but the biggest drives that we could buy for
our uVAX-II's at the time were 360MB and they cost $4375 each. The controller
cost $2375, IIRC.
Theynever did build a microVAX that would outrun that 25 MHz '286.
Dick
----- Original Message -----
From: "John Allain" <allain(a)panix.com>
To: <classiccmp(a)classiccmp.org>
Sent: Friday, January 25, 2002 6:27 PM
Subject: Re: Bell & Howell Apple II update
- - - -point
however. DEC, for example, stayed with "old" technology, charging WAY more
than "new" technology prices for it for years. They typically lagged two
generations behind in technology, yet exceeded costs of "leading edge"
systems
by a couple of orders of magnitude. Just compare the cost and features of
the
PC/AT clones sold in, say, '87-88 with a similarly equipped microVAX-II.
The
PC/AT would typically cost about $800 bucks, while a similarly equipped
uVaxII
cost nearly $100K, partly for the stuff the PC/AT had, and partly for what
you
had to add in order to have the stuff the PC/AT had. Inside a year, the
power
cost alone exceeded the PC/AT, yet folks LOVED the microVax and hated the
PC/AT clone, that ran half-again as fast. If that DEC gear hadn't been so
- - - -
- - - -counterpoint
I have two machines sold in 1987, and the original bills of sale for both.
One I bought used for 35 bucks 5 years ago, the other, new.
1987: PS/2m60 10Mhz $2,200 and microVaxII ??20Mhz?? $39,000
Looks bad, doesn't it? Except the PS2 had 1M/mem and 44M/disk
and the VAX had 16M/mem, 310M/disk. So the price differential was
18x, not 120x, and there was enough difference in capacity to see why.
So, personally I have few problems with DEC.
- - - -
John A.