[rescue] IBM on ebay

[James Lockwood]

On Wed, 15 May 2002, Loomis, Rip wrote:

> Sure, there's *always* a reason or two:
> 1.  66Mhz processor scares most people away (Look, Myrtle...
>     someone wants to sell a computer "slower" than my PDA!)

Like hell.  That 66MHz turns in 10.4 specFP95 (that's roughly comparable
to a 175MHz mips R10000, a 200MHz UltraSparc or a 350MHz Pentium II).  Int
perf is lower but it's still no slouch.

> If this is what I *think* it is (I'm not an RS/6000 geek)
> then its big brother ran my mother's Navy library for
> several years...and it would be a neat system.  Personally,
> I still wouldn't go for it unless I needed a new time sink
> *and* had access to both RS/6000-smart folks and old copies
> of AIX.

Old?  4.3.3 will fly on that box.  The 590 is still a system to be
reckoned with.

The biggest downside is that the case is big, bulky and heavy.  Other than
that it's a nice system.

-James