Request for Comments: 386 Unix vs Sun vs HP

[Mark Bradakis]

In article <314 at comtst.UUCP> mdv at domain.com (Mike Verstegen) writes:
 
>HP:  I know equally little about HP. I feel comfortable with HP after years
>     of buying test equipment from them. Some drawbacks are their direction
>     of OSF/1 (and we're designing for V.4) and the inference that their 
>     maintenance support is expensive ($350/month/machine vs $75 for Sun -
>     reference Unix Today 10/1/90 p75) and for a small company, that's a
>     lot of money.

I doubt that these support figures are accurate.  An HP375 would run around
$30 a month, a 300 meg disk maybe $25, and minimal HPUX support might add
another $30.  Hardly the $350/month per machine you reference.  We have
about 100 HP workstations, and get the weekly scheduled maintenence, which
is quite inexpensive, less than the numbers I quote above.

>I can buy a complete stand-alone PC for $5,000 (Dell 325, Color with V.3).
>For the same money, I can get a monochrome diskless station from Sun. I
>don't think I can get anything from HP at that price.

Oh?  How about an HP 400dl, with 50 MHz 68030, 8 megs RAM, 1280 x 1024 mono
display, 19" CRT for $4,890?

One student lab was recently set up with both HP machines (the latest 400
series) and some Sun Sparcstations (4/110).  We have more troubles with the
Sun hardware and software than the HP.  Of course, to be fair, we run our
own bsd4.3 on the HP machines rather than the out of the box HPUX you get with
them.  And one obvious benefit is we fix software problems ourselves, and
don't have to wait for Sun to do something about troubles which arise.

mjb.

mjb at hoosier.utah.edu

"The tank is full, the switch is on.
The night is warm, the cops are gone."