> no, this is all nonsense. really, did any consumer buy an SGI workstation? or a Sun?
Yes. I had plenty of friends who did. Mostly from, very likely, similar companies like the ones you worked / consulted for when they upgraded. It turns out that despite the ludicrous prices new, last-generation workstations sold for a song, or were often just found in trash piles.
Corporate workstation markets aren't big into buying used. Supply and demand.
At the time, the gap between a modern Wintel and a previous-generation DEC Alpha (for compute) or IRIX (for 3D) was quite large, and not in Intel's favor. X + twm or similar was much more snappy than either NT or XP. And you had the full power of Unix.
Also: Multihead. Optical mice. Etc.
I had one particular a friend -- a student without more income than you'd expect of a student -- who had a whole roomful of older Suns, and probably a few Vaxes (which everyone hated).
Yes. I had plenty of friends who did. Mostly from, very likely, similar companies like the ones you worked / consulted for when they upgraded. It turns out that despite the ludicrous prices new, last-generation workstations sold for a song, or were often just found in trash piles.
Corporate workstation markets aren't big into buying used. Supply and demand.
At the time, the gap between a modern Wintel and a previous-generation DEC Alpha (for compute) or IRIX (for 3D) was quite large, and not in Intel's favor. X + twm or similar was much more snappy than either NT or XP. And you had the full power of Unix.
Also: Multihead. Optical mice. Etc.
I had one particular a friend -- a student without more income than you'd expect of a student -- who had a whole roomful of older Suns, and probably a few Vaxes (which everyone hated).