[rescue] Upgrading Ultra 2

[Sheldon T. Hall]

Bryan Gurney writes ...
[of the Sun Ultra 2 launch]
> SunWorld, November 1995:  
> http://sunsite.uakom.sk/sunworldonline/swol-11-1995/swol-11-fu
> sion.hardware.html
> 
> $60K for an Ultra 2 Creator back then?  Wow.

I think a SPARCClassic was about $11K in '93, and a U2 is a big step up from
that.

In 1993, one of my clients bought three PCs for a project I was doing for
them.  They paid $15K each for 'em.  Yeah, they were DEC PCs, but still.
The specs?  Pentium 60 (with FP error), with 72 MB RAM and 1 GB hard drive.
16 serial ports.  250MB tape drive. 16" monitor.  And SCO UNIX!

Back then, commodity PC memory was $60/MB.  A 1-gig HD was a couple of
grand.  Etc.

You could spend over $50K on an SGI Indigo2 in '95, and it was a single-CPU
box.

Just as a goof, I dragged out my 1995 price book, made a few extrapolations,
and figured out that the SGI Challenge I'm running would have listed for
$940,000 when it was new.  Of course, you couldn't have actually _bought_ it
in its current spec, since no one was making 18 GB hard drives, 32X SCSI CD
drives, etc.

And, of course, $60K was a lot more money in '95 than it is now.

I don't suppose I'll mention the depreciation curve on that stuff, either,
but we all know it's the only reason we can afford to have the equipment we
do.

-Shel