CompuServe Messages

Kevin, What are kornerstones? Are they FP or memory intensive? Remember, the base "$4,995" Indy comes with an R4000PC, which has about the same interger performance as the 486DX2/66 and about half the fp performance of the pentium. To get pentium class (actually, slightly better than pentium) performance, you have to get the full blown R4000(SC?) Indy, which costs more. I'm going by SpecInt and SpecFP for the performance comparisons. To get significantly better than pentium performance, you have to go with the R4400, which is available only on the higher end Indigos, and I think the R4400 Indigo2 was delayed (it may be out now though). These machines cost about $35,000 and up machines, so they are really just a dream for us mortals. Also, the "$4,995" Indy comes with no hard disk, a 15" 1024×768 monitor with a 2D graphics board that's "virtual 24bit" meaning it does really gross-looking dithering on solid fills. I've seen this on the base Indigo and I hate it. It looks ok on flat shaded stuff in the Iris Inventor demo but makes my stomach turn on the morph demo. I'll take true 24bit or even 16bit color any day. I would guess that a decent Indy, one with the real 24bit graphics, the real R4000(SC?), a gig hard disk, 32 megabytes, and a 19" monitor would cost over $16,000. You could get two like-equipped Compaq pentiums for this price.