[SunRescue] What should I look for?

[Jason Alexander]

Last time I checked, the Ultra10 and Ultra5 only had EIDE drives, and
didn't even come close to using UDMA or anything.  The specs I read from
Sun's web site in March claimed 16.6 MB/s, which is currently 1/3 of the
available IDE transfer rates on newer PC boards (66  MB/s is out).  Of
course, this is probably external transfer rate, and the disk in fact is
slower than that.   They do mention version 2.1 compliant PCI 66 on their
PCI page.  You can always put a 2940UW2 in a PCI slot, but you can't boot
to scsi.

Only 512 Megs memory?  Yes, this is more than my Pentium Pro machine can
do, but in the last couple years 512 is SMALL.  256MB is comfortable right
now, so I imagine the Ultra5 with 512 MB ram would feel really small and
slow in a year.

Plus, 24-bit graphics, in my opinion, >sucks< if it can only do a
resolution of 1152x768.  Who in the heck gives a crap about 8bit.   If it's
8-bit, I will make it headless rather than torture myself with it's
pixelated color-deficit.  The Ultra10 and Ultra5 are using a RagePro or
some ATI card, but my Matrox Millenium from 3 years ago is a much better 2D
card, where I can do 1280x1024 with a decent refresh (76Hz) @ 16/24 bits.
The ATI card does have better 3D support, but it's still not GLIDE or
anything decent, so it's one-legged 3D support. =)

In short, a Sun is alot like a Mercedes.  They make excellent, if not the
best computer hardware around, (software is good too).  However, it costs a
lot for a brand new machine, and it's REALLY hard to feel justified when
you sit and use it.  It's just as hard to sit in a new mercedes (not the
cheap C class) and feel like it's a 60,000$ machine as it is to sit in
front of a E4500 and feel like it's worth it's cost.  And like a Mercedes,
you think you are getting a great deal by buying some cheapo C-Class
mercedes (ultra 5/10) because it's new.  But really you could have bought a
5-8-year old convertible mercedes (2 year old Ultra1) with twice the
horsepower, more than twice the engineering, and a HECK of a lot better car
for the same price.  With Mercedes going 300K miles without hardly anything
going wrong these days, you are really just a vain attempt at impressing
people by getting a C-class (they are nice cars).  Sun's are the same way.
The engineering is so stinking well-done, that an older, but higher-model
sun (I still like the Sparc 20/71's) is a better deal than a cheap new one.
 Yes, the analogy breaks in some ways, since cars are not as dependent on
the engine speed as computers are on CPU.  The Ultra5/10 do come with a
very nice processor selection.  

I am still searching for the 300$ headless Sparc 5|10/41|70.  A sparc 5/70
would be nice.
--jason

At 06:23 AM 5/28/99 , you wrote:
>James Lockwood wrote:
>
>> [Ultra 5]
>
>> If you can get the current academic promo pricing, you can get
>> a heck of a deal (360MHz/64mb/8gb for $1795).
>
>This is indeed a great deal, but 64Mb is pushing it, especially
>if the machine is used for anything other than a workstation,
>or if you run CDE, Netscape, etc. 119Mb of swap *in use* on the
>one I'm currently using. Swapping is extraordinarily painful on
>those IDE disks they come with as standard.
>
>--m
>
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