Academic workstations : Macintosh ...

[Russell Shackelford]

In article <1209 at uvm-gen.UUCP>, cavrak at uvm-gen.UUCP (Steve Cavrak,113 Waterman,6561483,) writes:
> > We are in the process of considering the purchase of workstations for
> > a small lab in our Computer Science Department.  Our proposed 
> > configuration calls for 8 workstations (8Mb RAM, 200+Mb disk, large
> > monochrome display) and a server.  
> 
> As a "generic" machine, the Macintosh is probably a better bet ---

well, i dunno what the experience of other folks has been, but at Georgia
Tech people have gotten some measure of exerience with all three of the
choices (Mac, Next, Sun) mentioned in the original post. from what i've
heard.....

MAC AUX:
there's a couple labs full of those things and they mainly keep everybody
mad as hell. trouble getting it work with the net. trouble with the compilers.
things get fixed (by local sweat, not apple's) but in the process they make
everybody nuts.  the prez had some scheme to get a couple truckloads of the
things. dunno what he's gonna do, but everybody around here wanted to tell
him to forget it.... the faculty who have the things in their offices mainly
use them as paper weights will waiting for the required permission to clean
the alleged-unix off the disk so they can actually use the things for
something...

Next:
couple of dozen or so scattered about. people seem to think they're pretty ok,
'specially the sexier things.... but they're buggy... getting better... but
still buggy.... and there's no software..... so nobody's really excited...
but then again, nobody is mad either.... people expect this sort of thing
from new products....

Sun's:
every CS faculty (almost) has got one on his/her desk.  they use'm
everyday and nobody's mad.... the only fly in the ointment: they started
to check out alt sources of serv. contracts cause they were spending more
than they thought reasonable on the things...    

does anybody else know of a shop that's used all 3?
 
-- 
Russell Shackelford
School of Information and Computer Science
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, 30332
russ at prism.gatech.edu         (404) 834-4759