From owner-freebsd-chat Fri Nov 30 20: 2:28 2001 Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from lists.blarg.net (lists.blarg.net [206.124.128.17]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5FED837B419 for ; Fri, 30 Nov 2001 20:02:25 -0800 (PST) Received: from thig.blarg.net (thig.blarg.net [206.124.128.18]) by lists.blarg.net (Postfix) with ESMTP id EE3E0BD2D; Fri, 30 Nov 2001 20:02:24 -0800 (PST) Received: from localhost.localdomain ([206.124.139.115]) by thig.blarg.net (8.9.3/8.9.3) with ESMTP id UAA12644; Fri, 30 Nov 2001 20:02:24 -0800 Received: (from jojo@localhost) by localhost.localdomain (8.11.6/8.11.3) id fB142lg95034; Fri, 30 Nov 2001 20:02:47 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from swear@blarg.net) To: Mike Meyer Cc: "Anthony Atkielski" , Subject: Re: Feeding the Troll (Was: freebsd as a desktop ?) References: <15367.37543.15609.362257@guru.mired.org> <040701c179af$4bda25f0$0a00000a@atkielski.com> <15367.43943.686638.723011@guru.mired.org> <003301c179ea$8925d270$0a00000a@atkielski.com> <15368.2156.193643.17139@guru.mired.org> <005601c179f3$a4030640$0a00000a@atkielski.com> <15368.5624.255357.964607@guru.mired.org> From: swear@blarg.net (Gary W. Swearingen) Date: 30 Nov 2001 20:02:45 -0800 In-Reply-To: <15368.5624.255357.964607@guru.mired.org> Message-ID: Lines: 22 User-Agent: Gnus/5.0808 (Gnus v5.8.8) XEmacs/21.1 (Cuyahoga Valley) MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.org Mike Meyer writes: > I don't believe there was any way they could have sold Unix > workstations at PC prices. You can't build a reasonable Unix > workstation using PC parts for PC prices today; why should they have > been able to do it with proprietary hardware back then? Remember late '80s Apollo/DOMAIN workstations? 68000 CPU; ISA peripheral bus; PC-class hardware, but still twice the cost of a top-of-the-line IBM PC clone, IIRC. Workstation buyers wanted/needed better-than-PC systems. Like huge 200 MB disks, big B&W monitor with custom, better-than-PC video, token-ring network interface, mouse. Plus enough memory to run really good GUI document publishing software like Interleaf or Framemaker. Plus they had to pay for the cost of developing their GUI OS which was better than M$ could come up with in years of foot dragging. Actually they said it was really a custom OS (DOMAIN?) simulating Unix. (I think you could also run X, but we normally didn't.) They sold out to HP in the early 90s. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message