Symbolics prices (not only in Europe)

[barmar@Think.COM (Barry Margolin)]

    Date: Wed, 28 Aug 1991 14:16 EDT
    From: baechler%liasun3.epfl.ch@Warbucks.AI.SRI.COM (Emmanuel Baechler)

      I know that lisp machines can be impressibely efficient and flexible, and
    that people can do incredible things with them. However, the problem is not
    a technical problem, it is a problem of PRICE. For example, very few people
    are willing to pay $1000000 for a car, no matter how good it is. I guess that
    there is a similar problem about workstations. In this case, the problem is
    even worse, because most vendors are dropping their prices impressively,
    while symbolic's ones remain fairly high. 

To be fair, Symbolics's price/performance ratio has dropped drastically.
Almost every one of their new machines has come out with a price very
close to the one it replaces, but with dramatic speedups.  An XL1200 is
almost an order of magnitude faster than the original 3600, but costs
about half.  Taking 8 years of inflation into account (at 4%/year, it
comes to about 36%), the price/performance increase is even more
dramatic.  The MacIvory Model 3 costs little more than the original
MacIvory.

Probably the best deal, for sites that already have big Suns, is the
UX1200S, which has almost the same performance as the XL1200, but at
half again its price.

                                                barmar