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Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!bunyip.cc.uq.oz.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!yeshua.marcam.com!news.kei.com!eff!news.umbc.edu!europa.eng.gtefsd.com!gatech!usenet.ufl.edu!usenet.cis.ufl.edu!prl.ufl.edu!kem From: kem@prl.ufl.edu (Kelly Murray) Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.misc Subject: Re: NetBSD on cheap boxes Date: 14 Jan 1994 18:54:59 GMT Organization: University of Florida Parallel Reasearch Lab. Lines: 33 Distribution: world Message-ID: <2h6pq3$ire@snoopy.cis.ufl.edu> References: <2h2u3kINN6o3@ymir.cs.umass.edu> NNTP-Posting-Host: festus.prl.ufl.edu In article <2h2u3kINN6o3@ymir.cs.umass.edu>, doyle@gaia.cs.umass.edu (Jim Doyle) writes: |> Hehe.. I bought a cheap 386sx box to run NetBSD solely as a router. |> I wanted to offload interrupt processing on my Sun at home, I had some |> extra PC parts (disk drive, Enet, SIMMs), so I spent $120.00 and got an |> SX. It sat there doing nothing but routing between my 14.4 PPP/SLIP |> link and my home ethernet segment (several other hosts attached). |> |> Well.. I got hooked. The thing now not only routes IP for me, it |> servers a local Kerberos realm for me, I've got a terminal tied off it |> so guests can check email and I moved my Xkernel stuff onto it so I can |> give my my diskless Sun 3/60 a boot (its an Xterm). Besides that, |> last week, I dropped in a 486/33 and threw in 8MB core. |> |> NetBSD is a bargain on cheapola hardware for dedicated applications. |> Particularly for Xterminals.. A friend of mine is pricing 486/33's to |> turn into Xterms for some engineers at the company he works for. It is a |> small company, they are tight on cash, and thus cant drop a SPARC-10 on |> everyones desk.. Given what a PC with a good S3 video card can do - it |> would be stupd to pay $2500.00 for an at most mediocre Xterm. It would be pretty stupid to pay $2500 for a mediocre Xterminal, but it wouldn't be smart to build a PC to be just an Xterminal either, since my company (NCX) sells 15" Color Xterminals right now for $983. You might pass this info along to your friend, after he finishes pricing those 486 PC's... -- -- Kelly Murray (kem@prl.ufl.edu) University of Florida Parallel Research Lab :: 96-node KSR1, 64-node nCUBE Send mail to ncx@netcom.com for deals on Actix S3 Video cards: ISA Actix GE32 1mb: $129, GE32+2mb: $179, Ultra+2mbVram: $299 -------------------------------------------------------------------------