3 ms·

It was not - 68000 and 68020 (and 68030 of course) based systems were still sold later than that. The highest end mac in 1990 was 68030 based (https://everymac.

by ido 1y ago

It was not - 68000 and 68020 (and 68030 of course) based systems were still sold later than that. The highest end mac in 1990 was 68030 based (https://everymac.com/systems/apple/mac_ii/specs/mac_iifx.html https://everymac.com/systems/apple/mac_ii/specs/mac_iifx.htm...) and was prohibitively expensive. New 68030 models were still being introduced as late as 1994.

fredoralive 1y ago
It’s a bit mixed, by 1990 most UNIX vendors were moving to various RISC architectures so a 68k based workstation would appear rather old fashioned for that market. People paid Serious money for a UNIX system to do Serious work, so why cheap out on yesterdays technology? A/UX didn’t seem to do that well in the market either.
- gxd 1y ago
  My uni had these, as I mentioned in a reply elsewhere on the thread. I'm curious to know what kind of Serious Work people here saw back in the day. I was a student so I had relatively rare access to the high end stuff... Most of my time was spent in cheap-ish sun terminals. Later on, as a last year student, I became cooler and got access to the RISC 6000s and started hanging out with the graduate students. Most of the Serious Work I saw was email. There was some limited running of simulations and research software from other universities, but little that required a lot of processor power on an ongoing basis. I think these were generally more useful due to their native networking capabilities and software availability than their raw CPU power. In a sense, you had to have them because everybody else had one.
  - tyingq 1y ago
    CAD/CAM was a pretty common reason to have an early Sparc workstation.
- pjmlp 1y ago
  A/UX failure had more to do with Apple's approach to it, and their relationship with IBM, than anything else.
pram 1y ago
The IIfx wasn't expensive (or fast) because it had a 68030, also it was DOA lol
- icedchai 1y ago
  680x0 systems weren't "DOA" in the consumer space yet. I would be another ~4 years until the Mac PowerPC transition.
  - pram 1y ago
    You’re eliding the point by saying “680x0” The NextStation had a 68040 and it released in 1990. I didn’t say the entire 68k architecture my dude.
    - icedchai 1y ago
      68040’s weren’t really available in quantity when the IIfx was released. NextStations were closer to the end of 1990. Plus their 68040 Unix workstations felt DOA because all of NeXT’s competitors had moved to RISC. Sun had Sparc, DEC and SGI were on MIPS, IBM had POWER, HP had PA.
      - pram 1y ago
        Indeed, im glad we can agree a UNIX workstation (as alluded to in the article) with a 68030 in 1990 was DOA
        icedchai 1y ago
        Yeah. As a teenager with an A3000 in 1991, I still would've loved to run AMIX though! A couple years later I got a used 386SX and played around with early Linux distros.
  - fulafel 1y ago
    Macs weren't really consumer devices except for some rich americans, but Amigas were.

by ido 1y ago

fredoralive 1y ago

It’s a bit mixed, by 1990 most UNIX vendors were moving to various RISC architectures so a 68k based workstation would appear rather old fashioned for that market. People paid Serious money for a UNIX system to do Serious work, so why cheap out on yesterdays technology? A/UX didn’t seem to do that well in the market either.

gxd 1y ago
My uni had these, as I mentioned in a reply elsewhere on the thread. I'm curious to know what kind of Serious Work people here saw back in the day. I was a student so I had relatively rare access to the high end stuff... Most of my time was spent in cheap-ish sun terminals. Later on, as a last year student, I became cooler and got access to the RISC 6000s and started hanging out with the graduate students. Most of the Serious Work I saw was email. There was some limited running of simulations and research software from other universities, but little that required a lot of processor power on an ongoing basis. I think these were generally more useful due to their native networking capabilities and software availability than their raw CPU power. In a sense, you had to have them because everybody else had one.
- tyingq 1y ago
  CAD/CAM was a pretty common reason to have an early Sparc workstation.
pjmlp 1y ago
A/UX failure had more to do with Apple's approach to it, and their relationship with IBM, than anything else.

pram 1y ago

The IIfx wasn't expensive (or fast) because it had a 68030, also it was DOA lol

icedchai 1y ago
680x0 systems weren't "DOA" in the consumer space yet. I would be another ~4 years until the Mac PowerPC transition.
- pram 1y ago
  You’re eliding the point by saying “680x0” The NextStation had a 68040 and it released in 1990. I didn’t say the entire 68k architecture my dude.
  - icedchai 1y ago
    68040’s weren’t really available in quantity when the IIfx was released. NextStations were closer to the end of 1990. Plus their 68040 Unix workstations felt DOA because all of NeXT’s competitors had moved to RISC. Sun had Sparc, DEC and SGI were on MIPS, IBM had POWER, HP had PA.
    - pram 1y ago
      Indeed, im glad we can agree a UNIX workstation (as alluded to in the article) with a 68030 in 1990 was DOA
      - icedchai 1y ago
        Yeah. As a teenager with an A3000 in 1991, I still would've loved to run AMIX though! A couple years later I got a used 386SX and played around with early Linux distros.
- fulafel 1y ago
  Macs weren't really consumer devices except for some rich americans, but Amigas were.