On August 14, Kurt J. Lidl wrote:
> Another way to think of it like this -- the total number of sbus based
> sparcs in the world is now probably at its maximum.  As they break,
> die and are destroyed over the next couple of years, this number will
> only go down.
> 
> (You can, of course, still get parts and replacement items from sun.
> I'm not trying to scare anybody about the machines disappearing, just
> that the number won't be increasing...)  I think it would very hard
> to convince a manufacturer of hardware that it was worthwhile to
> pursue selling into a small (and increasingly smaller as time goes
> on) market -- namely sbus anything cards...

  Of course this is correct...but yet another way to look at this is
this: DEC stopped making MicroVAX-II systems a LONG time ago.  They're
still all over the place.  Someone (a Sun employee) once told me that
Sun sold more SS1 machines (SS1 alone, that is) than all models of
Sun3 computers combined.  There are a LOT of Sbus machines out
there...don't expect them to dry up anytime soon.  We'll all be able
to get as many of them as we want for many years to come, I'm sure.

           -Dave McGuire