[rescue] Mac Appliance

[Dave McGuire]

On August 3, joshua d boyd wrote:
> Well, not exactly.  I mean, on the one hand, it sounds like, why get an
> antique box when a new one is available (since this is a business that is
> reasonable).  On the other hand, it sounds stupid the other way if we are
> talking about a box for running SunOS 4 apps.  Then, you couldn't even
> consider anything newer, but the question still could be put, why buy a
> Sparc 2 when you can get a Sparc 20 clone?

  You have a point, but the pdp11/70 is nearly thirty years old...the
ss2 is barely 10.  They're in very different places in the computer
value curve...I know many people who would pay a LARGE sum of money
for a pdp11/70, whereas I can get SS2s for five bucks.

  So it boils down to this...why spend $200 for an SS20 when I can buy
FORTY SS2s for the same price, if the SS2 will do the job and be
reliable?

> So, I guess the question was meant to be, is there something special about
> 11/70s (like SunOS is special to sparcs) that keeps it's users from being
> able to buy new machines?

  Just the speed.

> Or, it could be the related question, is a PDP-11 a PDP-11, or is each
> model incompatible with the next PDP-11 model (in which case the Mentec
> models might be similar in name only).

  They are software compatible.  Nearly 100% compatible over thirty
years of machines, I might eadd.

> As you might guess, this is coming from someone who barely knowns a single
> thing about PDP-11s other than they preceded the Vaxes (and that actually
> is all I can think of that I know about PDP-11s.)

  You should study the pdp11 architecture and its assembly language,
Josh.  I think you'd really like it.

       -Dave

-- 
Dave McGuire
Laurel, MD