Itanium question.

Bill Davidsen wrote:

Peter Bjørn Perlsø wrote:
Benjamin Gawert wrote:

* ***** charles:

The latest version of FreeBSD says it supports both Itanium and Itanium2.
Right, but these are the only free operating systems.

Please list latest versions of Linux that do not boot/install on older
Itaniums spcifically. SuSE, RH etc....?
Latest SuSE for Itanium is SuSE 7.something (7.1?), latest Redhat is 7.3.

Because of what you said above, I passed on buying an IBM Itanium
system for about $200 so I hope you can backup your proposition.
200$ for a 7 year old Itanium machine isn't really a bargain...

Benjamin

It might just be; wha was the original price of the sucker?


I don't think that's relevant,

Of course it is. The presentday price of a given thing must of course be
seen in comparison to the price when it was factory new!

a seven year old PC has some use because
it can run non-demanding tasks. An obsolete formerly high performance
workstation is just obsolete, there probably aren't any non-demanding
tasks of interest. Other than people wanting to run Linux for the fun of
it,

But would this "fun" be worth 200$? It might just be!

which doesn't create much market demand. Old computers are often
sold by the pound, for salvage value rather than any useful purpose.

I was surprised to learn that my old S100 computers are now collectable
and in demand again. Who would have thought?

Vintage value.


--
regards , Peter B. P. - http://titancity.com/blog
http://markedspartiet.dk, http://macplanet.dk
http://siad.dk

"Benjamin Gawert" wrote in message
...
* Rick Jones:

I was never certain if all those merced-based systems were
sufficiently "identical" that HP-UX would boot/run on the non-HP
versions or not.

They were 100% identical with the only difference being the color of the
case. Funny thing is that the SGI 750 (SGIs version of this intel dual
Itanium workstation) at that time was the fastest system SGI offered.
Like all the other clones it ran HP-UX just fine...

Regardless, I think that while 11iv1.5 (aka 11.20)
and 11iv1.6 (aka 11.22) might run on the rx4610, i2000 and rx9610
those OSes themselves are no longer "supported" (IIRC).

Right, all these releases are EOL'd. For hobby purposes a HP i2000 or
one of the other OEM systems makes a nice system (it's still quite fast
in the fp department), but for production use it's just obsolete.

Benjamin

I thought the $200 was reasonable for a "play" machine that originally
cost many thousands of dollars. I would really like to buy a new
RX1620-2 to play with but the price is outragious and HP will not sell
it to me from their website. They want me to go through a reslller
since they consider the machine a "large corparation" purchase.
Boy is HP stupid when it comes to marketing and product placement.
The seller admitted that the original owner had just given it to him.
The original owner just didn't need it any more, job related.

later,
charles.....

***** charles wrote:
I thought the $200 was reasonable for a "play" machine that
originally cost many thousands of dollars. I would really like to
buy a new RX1620-2 to play with but the price is outragious and HP
will not sell it to me from their website. They want me to go
through a reslller since they consider the machine a "large
corparation" purchase. Boy is HP stupid when it comes to marketing
and product placement.

I'll plead no contest on that one and will try to ask a few
sales/marketing folks about it. Meanwhile, while none of these are
perfect, and some perhaps far from it, I'll toss-out a few
possibilities, some of which you may have already considered.

*) For stuff where you don't need to do a laying-on of hands:

http://www.testdrive.hp.com

*) If it is necessary to go through a reseller anyway, you might
consider a "newer" used system. There may even be some rx1620's
out there in the used market. While that would not address having
to go through a reseller, it would perhaps address the issues with
price.

hth,

rick jones
--
a wide gulf separates "what if" from "if only"
these opinions are mine, all mine; HP might not want them anyway...
feel free to post, OR email to rick.jones2 in hp.com but NOT BOTH...

* ***** charles:

I thought the $200 was reasonable for a "play" machine that originally
cost many thousands of dollars.

Probably more like "cost a few thousand dollars". IIRC the original
price of the HP i2000 in 1999 was around 4000.-EUR (the other intel OEM
boxes did cost around the same) which is more expensive than your
average PC but still cheaper than most other workstations at that time.

Note that this box is obsolete since ~2002 when HP introduced the
Itanium2-based zx2000 and zx6000 workstations (along with the rx2600 and
other servers). These Itanium(1) boxes (incl. your IBM Intellistation Z)
use the i460GX chipset which uses SDRAM and has some really annoying
bugs (i.e. in the AGP brigde which usually prevents you from having
accelerated 3D gfx in Windows and Linux and from having any gfx in HP-UX
at all). The EFI implementation is not compatible with the newer EFI in
Itanium2 systems or intel Macs, it can't use cards with EFI firmware as
they can't hook up to the outdated EFI version of the Intellistation Z
and it's brethren. The Itanium 800MHz (the fastest CPU these old buggers
take) has a great fp performance but the integer performance (which is
for most applications much more important) is around en par with an
Pentium3 800MHz - and this only when running IA64 code (32bit x86 code
runs with P-200 to PII-333 speed). Besides the *BSDs (which run far
better on any x86 or x64 box btw) these old machines only run mostly
outdated Linux versions like Redhat 7.2 and SuSE 7.3, IIRC only Debian
offers some newer releases for these boxes. It also runs Windows for
Itanium (from which the desktop version is dead for some time now) and
some outdated versions of HP-UX without any gfx.

I would really like to buy a new
RX1620-2 to play

The question is what you want to "play" with it. For Linux or *BSD every
cheap x86/x64 box is better and faster. OpenVMS for Itanium doesn't run
on the Itanium(1). Windowsxp Pro 64bit Edition is dead and there is zero
software for it, and Windows Server 2003 on Itanium does nothing that
can't be done on Windows Server 2003 for x64. And if you want HP-UX then
better get a c3600, c3700 or something similar for a few bucks from ebay
which offers better performance and more options than the old
Intellistation Z.

If you for some reason really want Itanium then pick up one of the
zx2000 workstations that often are available on ebay.

with but the price is outragious and HP will not sell
it to me from their website. They want me to go through a reslller
since they consider the machine a "large corparation" purchase.

Right, simply because it is a corporate product and no consumer product.

Boy is HP stupid when it comes to marketing and product placement.

Well, just because you have no clue about how the corporate market works
doesn't make _HP_ stupid. Fact is that Itanium is a corporate product
and not for consumers, and even there it rarely is used for entry level
but for midrange and highend computing. Customers usually don't buy a
single system but a package of systems, software, maintenance and
support. This can't be done by a Dell-like "order it over the web" thingie.

Benjamin

Peter Bjørn Perlsø wrote:
Bill Davidsen wrote:

Peter Bjørn Perlsø wrote:
Benjamin Gawert wrote:

Because of what you said above, I passed on buying an IBM Itanium
system for about $200 so I hope you can backup your proposition.
200$ for a 7 year old Itanium machine isn't really a bargain...

Benjamin
It might just be; wha was the original price of the sucker?


I don't think that's relevant,

Of course it is. The presentday price of a given thing must of course be
seen in comparison to the price when it was factory new!

The current price is set by supply and demand. The demand for old
workstations is pretty small, therefore they are cheap even though they
were expensive new. If units like this are being scrapped (and I believe
they are), then $200 is more than the "value" of the unit. There are too
many to be collectible, so the value (in the economics 101 sense) is
what you could sell it for if you resold it immediately.

I agree with the first opinion that it isn't a bargain.

--
Bill Davidsen
"We have more to fear from the bungling of the incompetent than from
the machinations of the wicked." - from Slashdot

Bill Davidsen wrote:

Peter Bjørn Perlsø wrote:
Bill Davidsen wrote:

Peter Bjørn Perlsø wrote:
Benjamin Gawert wrote:

Because of what you said above, I passed on buying an IBM Itanium
system for about $200 so I hope you can backup your proposition.
200$ for a 7 year old Itanium machine isn't really a bargain...

Benjamin
It might just be; wha was the original price of the sucker?


I don't think that's relevant,

Of course it is. The presentday price of a given thing must of course be
seen in comparison to the price when it was factory new!

The current price is set by supply and demand. The demand for old
workstations is pretty small, therefore they are cheap even though they
were expensive new. If units like this are being scrapped (and I believe
they are), then $200 is more than the "value" of the unit. There are too
many to be collectible, so the value (in the economics 101 sense) is
what you could sell it for if you resold it immediately.

I agree with the first opinion that it isn't a bargain.

How can you do that when no original price has been presented?

Assume a computer's trade price halves every 18 months.

If the box costs 1% of what it did when it was new, I'd say it is a
bargain.

--
regards , Peter B. P. - http://titancity.com/blog
http://markedspartiet.dk, http://macplanet.dk
http://siad.dk

* Peter Bjørn Perlsø:

How can you do that when no original price has been presented?

Besides that I already posted the price range of these computers, the
original price is irrelevant. If there is no demand on the market for
this item the value is low, no matter what the price tag said when it
was new.

Assume a computer's trade price halves every 18 months.

That's irrealistic. The half-life of computer equipment usually is
around 12 month, not 18 months, and this is only valid for mainstream
computers. Highend systems usually have a much steeper price degradation
curve...

If the box costs 1% of what it did when it was new, I'd say it is a
bargain.

I have an old IBM 286 PC somewhere that cost around 10000EUR when new.
But I wouldn't consider 100EUR for it a bargain...

Benjamin

Benjamin Gawert wrote:

* Peter Bjørn Perlsø:

How can you do that when no original price has been presented?

Besides that I already posted the price range of these computers,

Yes, I see that now, thanks.

the
original price is irrelevant. If there is no demand on the market for
this item the value is low, no matter what the price tag said when it
was new.

That much is true.


Assume a computer's trade price halves every 18 months.

That's irrealistic. The half-life of computer equipment usually is
around 12 month, not 18 months,

Thats and assumption you make. I have found that it varies between 6
months and 24 months, depending on new technoloy introductions, and the
brand of the computer (say Apple's tend to depreciate slower than
ordinary PCs).

and this is only valid for mainstream
computers. Highend systems usually have a much steeper price degradation
curve...

Considering that they are usually at the cutting edge of the technologie
world, you're probably right.


If the box costs 1% of what it did when it was new, I'd say it is a
bargain.

I have an old IBM 286 PC somewhere that cost around 10000EUR when new.
But I wouldn't consider 100EUR for it a bargain...

Benjamin

You forget how old it is. 24 years - now assuming as before a halving in
price ever 18 months, the price would be below 5 Euro. I'd call that
bargain... for my museum anyway.


--
regards , Peter B. P. - http://titancity.com/blog
http://markedspartiet.dk, http://macplanet.dk
http://siad.dk

* Peter Bjørn Perlsø:

Assume a computer's trade price halves every 18 months.
That's irrealistic. The half-life of computer equipment usually is
around 12 month, not 18 months,

Thats and assumption you make.

Nope, it's an general assumption used by most people, magazines and even
governmental offices here in Germany. You probably are mixing up
half-life and Moore's Law which wasn't regarding price but the
transistor count (it's said that Moore said the transistor count on cpus
doubles every 18 months; in reality he spoke about 12 months but still
people talk about 18 months).

The 50% loss per year is indeed a very accurate general indicator for
average PCs and components, at least here in Germany. For example, a
system that did cost 1000EUR a year ago usually goes for less than
500EUR today. Of course this isn't valid for much sought-after
components but for the majority it fits the bill quite well.

I have found that it varies between 6
months and 24 months, depending on new technoloy introductions, and the
brand of the computer (say Apple's tend to depreciate slower than
ordinary PCs).

Apple is a different story, look at the prices a G4 still goes for, and
compare that to a PC of the same age and class.

But besides lifestyle products from Apple and Sony you will hardly find
any standard PC that still has 50% of it's value after 2 years...

You forget how old it is. 24 years - now assuming as before a halving in
price ever 18 months, the price would be below 5 Euro.

These PCs are IIRC from 1987 (IBM PS/2 Model 30 286), so they are hardly
20 years old ;-)

Benjamin

Benjamin Gawert wrote:

You forget how old it is. 24 years - now assuming as before a halving in
price ever 18 months, the price would be below 5 Euro.

These PCs are IIRC from 1987 (IBM PS/2 Model 30 286), so they are hardly
20 years old ;-)

Benjamin

Sorry, I was thinking the year when the 286 come out.

Anyway, the point stands. You can have that 286 PC for the price of a
few pizzas today.


--
regards , Peter B. P. - http://titancity.com/blog
http://markedspartiet.dk, http://macplanet.dk
http://siad.dk