Re: Ultra AXmp

[Douglas Eadline <deadline@plogic.com>]

On Sat, 11 Jul 1998, Bob Drzyzgula wrote:

> 
> Sun's newly announced Ultra AXmp board is a pretty interesting
> platform. Based on early pricing estimates I've seen, it should
> be possible to build a quad-processor @ 300+MHz, 2GB rackmount
> system for under around $US 20K. I have a lot of Solaris applications
> for this board, but I also wonder what capabilities one would
> expect ULtraLinux to have on this machine...
> 
> http://www.sun.com/microelectronics/SPARCengineUltraAXmp/ 
> http://www.sun.com/microelectronics/SPARCengineUltraAXmp/805-5865.pdf
> http://www.sun.com/microelectronics/SPARCengineUltraAXmp/s7-mod.pdf
> http://www.sun.com/microelectronics/SPARCengineUltraAXmp/cover980706.html
> http://www.sun.com/smi/Press/sunflash/9807/sunflash.980706.1.html
> 

While I find such hardware interesting, lately I seem to have
developed an attitude of "If it is not in Computer Shopper"
(or equivalent) I do not consider it commodity and therefore
it is premium priced. Such introductory prices do not mention
service contracts and upgrade prices - which add up.
Getting spare parts at the corner PC shop or discount store
has a certain comfort. 

At the same time, high end hardware usually has better reliability
but, the "off the shelf stuff" is not that bad.  I grew up on
non-Intel platforms, but at the end of the day, reliability, price to 
performance and cost of ownership always seem to go to Intel/Linux. 

This is my opinion - take what works for you - throw the rest away.

Doug Eadline
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