>>>(Of course, I'm still grappling with the fact that there's still the reality
>>> that the same $3000 could buy me a PentiumPro 200 box with Fast/Wide SCSI
>>> and twice the SPECint as the SS5/170  (-: )
>> 
>>    I just got a PPro-150 for netbsd 1.2 .  It certainly runs circles
> 
> That's exactly what i'm going to do when I replace my good old SS 1+ clone.

Interesting; so you have no problems ditching part (all?) of your existing
hardware investment?  I'm grappling with this issue.  In particular, I'm
grappling with the fact that I have this nice big 20" Sony monitor on this
old clone, and I'm loathe to give it up.  All the data I've gotten on the
cards for PC's that drive fixed-sync monitors has been pretty bad - tales
of fly-by-night shiester (sp?) companies with flakey products and non-existant
support, etc.  Didn't give me the warm fuzzies, let's put it that way.

>>    around the SS5/85.  What used to be a 1.5hr compile is now done in 25
>>    minutes.

True, but I was talking about the new SS5/170 ( ~ 132 SPECint92), so compare
25 minutes to 45 minutes  :-)

> Even a well tuned Pentium 90 under Linux or some BSD implementation
> beats the SS5/85.  And the availability of free (or AFFORDABLE
> commercial) software for such a platform is meanwhile even better than
> it is for SPARCs.

Yes, but I don't think too many of us on this list are crying too much
over the fact that there's more binaries out there which can be run in
Linux Binary Compatibility Mode on PCs than SPARCstations  (-:  (Plus,
if we get to the point where Christos' SVR4/Solaris emulation can run
these really hard/complex binaries - read: some mondo commercial apps -
that somewhat offsets it.)

>    The other thing thats really nice is the better framebuffer.  Nice
>    16-bit color means never having to worry about two programs lusting
>    ^^^^^^^^^^^^
> which is available in standard PC graphic cards (S3 trio 64 or so).

A good point, but I would observe that for awhile, I was running XFree86
in 16-bit mode on a Pentium 120 running NetBSD 1.2 upstairs from my
office, and too many programs freaked out because there wasn't an 8-bit
visual available (or, conversely, 24-it TrueColor or DirectColor visuals).
Both Netscape and Mosaic had ugly green blotches all over the place, I
remember.  I gave up the 16-bit mode post-haste.

>    over the same colormap entry.  Even at 40% off, Sun's stuff is way
>    overpriced.  Time has marched on, but Sun hasn't kept up.
> 
> Not only Sun --- look at the pricing of all workstation manufacturers.

Well, just to keep this germane to our list: the thing that I thought was
interesting was that it seems that for the first time, Sun is finally
getting half a clue and as a result, the bang-for-the-buck ratio of this
new box is 'way better than ever before.  It's still underpowered compared
to a similarly-priced PentiumPro, but I'm still surprised to see a box from
Sun that - admittedly at full educational 40% discount - is only $2800+.

Given that I suspect there's more than a few of us with a SPARCstation at
home, it still seems noteworthy for that fact alone.  I know that I'll
no longer give any brain CPU to considering a Cycle 5 board, for example.
Even if Cycle 5 comes out with a 170 MHz TurboSPARC board (which I think
they are), if it's anywhere around the $2500 they charge for the current
110 MHz microSPARC board, it's a no-brainer.  Then there's these Raptor-like
cheap UltraSPARC AX boxes coming down the pike ...

Anyway, this is getting off-topic so I'll stop here.

	- Greg