From: Robert Jacobson Subject: HARDWARE: Fast new graphical workstations from Sun, SGI Date: Tue, 6 Jul 93 23:52:38 -0700 Newsbytes, in an article too long to summarize fully here, reports that both Sun and SGI have new workstations useful for work in the third dimension. SGI has two new Indigo2s, the XL and XZ, starting at $18,000 each. I'm not sure if they're similar machines, or typos, but apparently there are also a ZL and ZX, the latter going for $25K+. Sun is putting out three new SPARCstations, the (plain old) SPARCstation, the 10Turbogxplus, and the SPARCstation ZX. (Is ZX some sort of new mark of quality, like GT used to be with fast cars in the 1960s?) The machines have respective uses that are so specialized as to be remarkable; for example, the 10Turbogxplus is intended for electronic design automation, GIS, and MCAD. Whew. Talk about targeting markets. The claim by Sun is that these workstations outperform their counterparts from SGI, HP, DEC, and anyone else. The ZX, it is claimed, offers three times the 3D performance of other sub-$20K workstations. The SPARCstation 10ZX is the flagship, some sort of monster graphics processor. In a nice touch of picque, to quote Newsbytes, SMCC representatives say the difference between SMCC workstations and SGI workstations is illustrated in the movie "Jurassic Park." While SGI workstations were used to computer generate the images of the dinosaurs used in the film, SMCC workstations are being used by scientists patterned in the movie who are really doing genetic modeling and similar applications. (Yes, but the beige pizza box can't cut it next to the quasi-organic, blue-finned SGI _forms_ pictured in the film. On the other hand, the useless (in the movie) Quadra holds its profile well.) The Sun machines starting prices run from about $18K to about $29K.