Buying UNIX for a clone

[Richard A. Lethin]

In article <15283 at life.ai.mit.edu> lethin at ai.mit.edu (Richard A. Lethin) writes:
>
>We built a custom board for the ISA bus to interface to some research
>equipment, and have been debugging it using MSDOS.  Soon, we would
>like drop this board into a UNIX-based 386 system that we can access
>via the ethernet from our SPARCstations.  
>
>I've considering a few options:
>...

I decided to go with a complete Dell system (hardware+UNIX)

1) Their phone salespeople are sharp, always return calls, and 
are really on top of things.   Very pleasant to deal with.

2) Their prices are competitive.  They offer an educational discount.

3) 30-day return policy on the operating system.

4) They'll factory-install the OS.  Very nice, saves us a lot of
trouble.  However, they won't factory-install both UNIX and DOS; if
we need to do this I guess we're going to need to figure it out
ourselves. 

5) I bought the service contract.  I chatted with some of the people
in the UNIX shop before making the decision and they seemed
knowledgeable.

6) It's pricey (when you include the service contract, developer's
toolkit, and required tape drive) but I'm hoping the convenience will
justify the decision.  For a home system, it is too expensive.

7) The MIT microcomputer center supports Dell.

(The 1-2 user vs. multiuser pricing is something that drives me nuts -
it reminds me of trying to login to a DECstation 3100 and to be kept
out due to a similar restriction.  AT&T should do themselves a favor
and remove this extremely negative licensing relic.)

The complete system looks something like this (remember that this is
with the Educational discount)

Dell 333D 386-33 Mhz computer    $2380   
8 Mb RAM                          $759    
3.5 inch floppy disk drive         $94     
200 Mb Hard Disk                  $854    
VGA Color Plus Video Monitor      $379    
150 Mb Tape drive                 $759    
16-bit ethernet card              $265
DOS, Windows, Mouse                $95     
UNIX System V Release 4           $945    
Developer's Tool Kit              $522    
Software Support Contract         $333    
                                 -----
                                 $7385