Re: powermac snapshot.

[Bill Studenmund <skippy%macro.stanford.edu@localhost>]

On Thu, 19 Feb 1998, Peter Seebach wrote:

> In message 
> <Pine.BSF.3.96.980219090240.1236A-100000%mars.abcinternet.net@localhost>, Dan 
> Jacobowitz writes:
> >There is no kernel or bootloader included - still haven't quite booted it,
> >myself - but a snapshot built with MACHINE == powermac is on
> >ftp.abcinternet.net/NetBSD .
> 
> Cool!  Am I out of line to infer that it may be worth considering a powermac
> as my next desktop Unix?

Though I don't know the answer, I've bet $$ that it is. :-) I bought a G3
PowerMac, and am very happy with it. I hope to run NetBSD on it as the
powermac development progress.

> Alternatively, what else are people doing for desktop PPC systems?  Would
> something like a UMAX be better, or am I wrong to be looking at Mac vendors
> at all?  Ideally, I'd like a fastish 604, or a G3 (hah!) system, or something
> comparable, but I haven't really seen much but Macs.

I think the problem is that Steve Jobs did a stupid thing by forcing away
the clone makers. I can see buying PowerComputing, since they seemed to be
going at Apple's throat. But Motorola (I think) is a more-respected name
in consumer electronics than is Apple. Because of this squeze play (clone
killing), I think Macs, and Motorola & IBM workstations are about it.

Why the "hah" for the G3's? Apple's problems at the moment are basically
that the G3's cost less than many of Apple's 604e offerings, and perform
better. Thus a lot of machines aren't selling.

The G3 I got is the Desktop 266 one. My configuration is $2400 from Apple
(and $2155 through an educational discount :-).

Take care,

Bill