What do users really want?

[Keith Price <price%iris.usc.edu@USC.EDU>]

>attila%flash.bellcore.com@usc.edu (Leslie A. Walko)

>Fifth suggestion: 
>A 760MB XL400 paging disk list at 11,500.  We buy the same capacity CDC
>WREN VI *with* the SCSI interface for 2,800.  (However, we are going to
>switch to WREN VII because they will have more capacity and are cheaper
>by the byte.) If Symbolics sold the same disk at $4,000 we would order
>all future machines with dual disks. [We already choose to upgrade the
>current machines since our world is 160,000+ blocks; hence we need about
>400,000 block of page minimum.  But, our situation is *not*
>typical.] 

Without comenting on the other issues, you can today buy your disk from
anyone you wish at whatever price you wish and install it on the Symbolics
(or have Symbolics install it for a "nominal" fee).  They will even maintain
the disk (of course for the usual fee).  The only restrictions are that
the disk is already supported by the Symbolics hardware/software.  Our
sales/service people were very willing to discuss such options and these are
the same kind of options that make disks "cheap" on all other systems.
	Keith Price
	price@usc.edu