[rescue] [geeks] Last Call - Ultra 5/10 parts

[Mouse]

> Attractive features are (IMHO):

> PCI card expansion

Amusing.  PCI is one of the reasons I _dis_like those machines: it
means being saddled with peecee crap for peripherals.  (Video is
probably the worst single example, in my limited experience.)  It's as
if Sun realized they could use inexpensive perpherals to build
inexpensive machines, which, of course, resulted in machines that were
not only inexpensive but cheap.

My interest in SPARCs basically ends with Sun's dropping of SBus.  I
have a U5 or some such, which I use as a portability-to-sparc64
machine, but I don't have nearly the attachment to it that I do to, for
example, my SS20s.

> Form factors (not 100# of steel like a U30/U60, for example)

I'd rather a solid steel chassis than a flimsy peecee-style "drop it
and the case crumples" chassis any day.  It'll weigh three time as
much, but it'll survive.  A few months back I accidentally dropped a
SS20 from about four feet.  The case plastic broke and I was able to
find a little bent metal, but the machine itself was fine.  I wouldn't
expect that good a result out of dropping a U5 like that.

Which really is to say: different people, different tradeoffs.

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