From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
Message-ID: <7638cca1580296ffcbd03bc3e5a3e89a@9srv.net>
From: a@9srv.net
To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu
Subject: Re: [9fans] sparc hardware available in the UK (probably)
In-Reply-To: <Rv6dnXROupNaSA2iRVn-sg@comcast.com>
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Date: Mon, 20 Oct 2003 08:05:10 -0400
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my issue with the "why bother with new stuff?" isn't that i need
all the whiz-bang features of the newer devices, but rather that
it quicly becomes dificult to find older components, particularly
in any quantity or on any tight schedule. i've spent weeks in the
past looking for supported video or sound cards (i've not had
such a problem with ethernet; we may not support many, but the
ones we do are fairly common), and probably longer once or twice
looking for a supported scsi card. =1B[B=1B[Bas the manufacturers move on
to newer and fancier things, the older models get EOL'd and
binned.

and then there are one or two things i do care about from newer
systems: most notably support for large quantities of fast RAM.
preferably the comodoty varieties i can buy cheaply. i can get a
perfectly fine Sparc 20 cheap enough, which is plenty fast
enough for what i need (with processor speeds these days, the
idea of cheap-dumb-terminal and super-fast cpu server seems to
have fallen by the wayside), but getting the gig of ram i want
for my mail server (upas/fs isn't exactly the most memory
efficient mailer in the world) is a sight tougher.
=E3=82=A2