I worked on one of these, this was a nice machine. Unix was a little weird, but the graphics subsystem was very impressive for the time, almost on par with SGI's offering.
Apollo DN10000: Quad CPU/128Mb RAM workstation from 1988 [pdf]
61–70 of 163 posts
Re: Apollo DN10000: Quad CPU/128Mb RAM workstation from 1988 [pdf]
#62Even 10-15 years later, multiple CPUs and 128Mb RAM was quite uncommon. How much did this beast cost back in the 80s? Edit: Max configs were up to $250,000 ($663,937.02 today) back then according to this price list: http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/apollo/Apollo_Price_List_Jul88....
True, but there were wonderful exceptions. For instance, the Mac SE/30 (1989) could take up to 128 megs, and the Amiga 3000 (1990) was designed to allow for even more (although only 16 megs on the motherboard, but 256 meg Zorro III cards were available in 1993). Later, some m68k Macs like the Quadra 605 allowed for 128 meg SIMMs, and the PCI Power Macs really took things to a new level. The Power Mac 9500 could take…
Eh to be fair I think the main reason Zorro III RAM cards didn't appear until way after the first Zorro III machine is that Zorro III wasn't coupled to CPU speed so sticking RAM there wasn't great from a performance perspective - you really needed to use the CPU slot to extend beyond 18MB (remember the 2MB of Chip in addition to the 16MB of Fast) in a useful way
Re: Apollo DN10000: Quad CPU/128Mb RAM workstation from 1988 [pdf]
#63Even 10-15 years later, multiple CPUs and 128Mb RAM was quite uncommon. How much did this beast cost back in the 80s? Edit: Max configs were up to $250,000 ($663,937.02 today) back then according to this price list: http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/apollo/Apollo_Price_List_Jul88....
I used to have an Alpha server from that vintage with I think 512MB of RAM. Came on two daughterboards full of 32K (or maybe 16K) SIMMs.
[deleted]
Re: Apollo DN10000: Quad CPU/128Mb RAM workstation from 1988 [pdf]
#64Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm triggered every time I see things like "$663,937.02 today". I just can't help it. There should be a word for [mindlessly] reporting the results of a calculation to arbitrary precision when only one significant digit of precision is warranted. There probably is such a word in German.
You and me both! When I see something like "a blue whale can be nearly 100 feet (30.48m) long", I want to throw a math book at the author. "Nearly 100 feet" is "nearly 30 meters". "About $250K" is "about $660K today" at best.
Not to mention the number of times you see geographical locations specified to nanometer precision.
Re: Apollo DN10000: Quad CPU/128Mb RAM workstation from 1988 [pdf]
#65I love reading this stuff!
Love seeing the fiber optics stuff at the end, every era had their own buzzwords with cool pictures!
The only thing I don't like is the inside of the case, it reminds me of some dell or HP systems, densely packed stuff with lots of metal brackets that's hard to work with and probably "vacuum cleaner" style fans in it too (I don't see the fans in the fotos, but I just feel it from the looks of it)
Re: Apollo DN10000: Quad CPU/128Mb RAM workstation from 1988 [pdf]
#66Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm triggered every time I see things like "$663,937.02 today". I just can't help it. There should be a word for [mindlessly] reporting the results of a calculation to arbitrary precision when only one significant digit of precision is warranted. There probably is such a word in German.
Überpräzisionsberichterstattung
Google Translate accepts it, so I guess it's a word. Only one Google result though (this page).
Re: Apollo DN10000: Quad CPU/128Mb RAM workstation from 1988 [pdf]
#67Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm triggered every time I see things like "$663,937.02 today". I just can't help it. There should be a word for [mindlessly] reporting the results of a calculation to arbitrary precision when only one significant digit of precision is warranted. There probably is such a word in German.
Überpräzisionsberichterstattung
Sometimes you just gotta love the German language. We joyfully smash words together to make new words, like a linguistic particle accelerator. :-)
Re: Apollo DN10000: Quad CPU/128Mb RAM workstation from 1988 [pdf]
#68Earlier quoted context omitted.
From 1988 to the 2000’s is a LONG time.
Quite a few Unix commands and concepts are exactly the same!
From 1988 you would watch b/w or 4 colours on PC made for offices being really expensive, and from y2k you could play DivX videos and TV at home. And from 2k-2k1, even under Unix at home too (something unthinkable by 1988) with some nice GNU/Linux distro :D.
The technology change from 1988 to 1998 was really huge, much more compared to what you could get since 2010 until today.
Re: Apollo DN10000: Quad CPU/128Mb RAM workstation from 1988 [pdf]
#69Please update title to MiB or MB.
Mb looks more like megabits.
Re: Apollo DN10000: Quad CPU/128Mb RAM workstation from 1988 [pdf]
#70I think every engineer had these in my 80186 clone group when I cooped at AMD, but I still had to submit SPICE timing simulation runs to the VAX mainframe. The CRT monitors were nice but huge.
What does cooping at AMD mean, does it mean a contract job? What is a 80186 clone group (a division at AMD designing 80186 clone CPUs, or a hobby group of 80186 PC enthusiasts?)
But these machines are from 1988, wouldn't one be designing 386 or even 486 clones at that time?