[Sussex] SPARCBooks, Powerbooks and bog standard laptops

[John Crowhurst]

> Chaps,
>
> Does anyone know of a company currently manufacturing SPARC based
> laptops other than Tadpole and NextCom - I'm looking to find the best
> price I can for such a beast, probably bear minimum is UltraSparc IIi @
> 500Mhz unless anyone knows of a particularly good price on a lower spec
> box.

http://www.acmeportable.com/products/ultrasparc/commander.htm
The Luggable (think house brick) Commander

http://www.naturetech.com.tw/sparcprd.htm
These look more like proper laptops

http://www.sparcproductdirectory.com/portable10.html
This site is a good guide to SPARC laptops, and anything SPARC by the
looks of things. They even have a list for resellers in the UK.

> Currently I'm weighing up my options for new 'puters, whatever happens I
> know these things aren't going to be cheap, but for my needs they are
> probably better suited than some P4 Dell laptop.
>
> My thinking right now is this: buy a decent laptop and a cheap (probably
> mini-itx) box  - the laptop will be the main machine, the mini-itx will
> sit on the end of my ADSL line and provide me with a point for the
> distribution of data.
>
> Of course, if we step away from the practical consideration we have to
> consider geek-chic here, so straw poll, what's cooler?:
>
> 32-bit Dell Laptop - Dual boot Gentoo Linux and QNX RtP
> 32-bit Apple Powerbook G4 - Dual boot Mac OSX and Gentoo Linux
> 64-bit Tadpole SPARCBook 5000 - Dual Boot Solaris 9 and Gentoo Linux

Well, I have to admit that the SPARCbook would turn more heads, seeing as
most Sun systems people see are desktop or server units, and it has a much
more geeky feel than the Apple.

My feelings over the Apple (in fact Apples in general) is that they tend
to be aimed away from the geek market, perhaps towards the other extreme,
the trendy matching-the-fridge market.

> Personally the SPARCBook comes top of my list, it doesn't look as cool
> as the Apple, but frankly that's the least of my concerns.
>
> As far as OS X is concerned - yeah, it's very cool, but it doesn't feel
> right to me, is sort of a weird Mac OS / UNIX hybrid.  My wife loves it,
> but these days I'm gravitating more and more towards the command line
> (the UNIX is growing in me..) and OSX has too many weird quirks in that
> respect to keep me happy.
>
> The Dell box is probably the most practical decision (especially as
> Sarah's new firm act for them and she can get a decent discount), but it
> doesn't really float my boat right now..

Your other choice would be a random brand laptop, much cheaper, but not so
nice looking. (something tells you that I'm an avid hater of Dell
hardware)

If you had to use windows, I'd recommend sticking cygwin on it, so you can
open a unix shell, fire up a copy of X and away you go. Not as good as the
real thing, but you can display from other computers to it.

-- 
John