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Xref: sserve comp.os.386bsd.questions:9101 comp.sys.dec:18812 Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.questions,comp.sys.dec Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!news.Hawaii.Edu!ames!agate!howland.reston.ans.net!news.moneng.mei.com!uwm.edu!caen!malgudi.oar.net!mercury.wright.edu!gracie!ejones From: ejones@gracie.psych.wright.edu (Ed Jones) Subject: what to buy...what to buy *sigh* Message-ID: <1994Mar2.103006.1@gracie> Sender: news@mercury.wright.edu (USENET News System) Organization: Signal Detection Lab Date: Wed, 2 Mar 1994 15:30:06 GMT Lines: 26 I want a unix box. Now that we've got that outa the way here is my question. I only want to spend $3000-$3500 on it. I am very used to DECstaions running Ultrix and DEC Alphas running OSF/1. It seems I have two basic options, and maybe more. DEC has a wonderful (seemingly) refurbished equipment deal on old DECstaions. For example, for $1800 I could get a DECstation 5000/120 with a 19" color monitor and PX graphics. For an additional $450 I could get total memory up to 24 megs and another $850 would buy me a 1gig SCSI drive. Remember, these are used prices. So, for $3100 I could get a decent workstaion for home use. I dont know how it would compare to a good 486dx266 running one flavor of free unix, either NetBSD or FreeBSD. For a 486 with 16 megs of ram, a decent 17" monitor, 500 meg SCSI drive, EISA/VESA bus with "good" SCSI host controller and video card is gonna cost me roughly the same as the DECstation. I do not play video games and absolutely hate Dos and WinBlows. So, what would you do? BTW, anyone know the performance specs on the 5000/120? I am going to check into some more refurb systems hoping to get more bang for only a few more bucks. Thanks for any help you can give me. -- **************************************************************************** * Ed Jones | ejones@desire.wright.edu * * Department of Psychology | ejones@sdl.psych.wright.edu * * Signal Detection Lab | ejones@wsu (Bitnet) * * Wright State University | * ****************************************************************************