CompuServe Messages

Open Letter to CBM

    12-Oct-91 02:58:00
Fm: Don Curtis/SYSOP 76703,4321
To: Black Belt Systems 76004,1771
Ben, Isn't that what I said? Cost per user was about equal? Also, those figures I saw weren't simply for the OS. It was for hardware and software. UNIX itself is relatively cheap. In most cases…it's included in the price of the machine, so you have to look at the upgrade cost. In our case, the upgrade cost for a 100+ user machine was only $400. Oh yea…on our '386 machine…UNIX was a separately priced item, for the unlimited user version…the cost was in the $600 -$800 price range. Not too bad In fact, that machine is a good example. Cost of the machine with no software other than UNIX was $17,000. That included the 40 Meg of RAM, 300 Meg SCSI HD, 120 Meg tape drive, ethernet card and TCP/IP software, video, 16 port serial card and math chip. It easily handles 10 users, and often does. That's only $1,700 per user which is cheap for a 33 MHz '386 with math chip if bought as a stand-alone DOS box. Don