Re: SPARCstation 5 - where to start?

[Jonathan Q <jq@example.com>]

gavin.walker@example.com (gavin.walker@example.com) wrote:

> That sounds like the place I went to - top floor is Unix kit?

Yeah, that's the place.


> were a few other places with old workstations gathering dust, Sun, SGI, HP, etc.
> Seems such a shame, as they were machines I'd have killed for at university, but
> these days are languising unused for the sake of a few Man En. Great deal for
> any comp-sci students out there...

Yes and no.  Mostly good just for the exotic quality, really.  For
50,000 yen, you can build an Intel or AMD-based box that will 
beat the snot out of a used 50,000 yen RISC machine on performance,
disk capacity, graphics, memory capacity, you name it.  A CS is
student is better off with one of those running Linux or *BSD
unless they have a specific need to run Solaris on Sparc or something.

But it is a shame to see that cool stuff gathering dust, you're right.
Not that useful, but fun just to have it :-)

Jonathan