From: utzoo!decvax!cca!hplabs!pdh@sri-unix
Newsgroups: net.space
Title: Re: Radio Shack 8080's escaping in Soviet diplomatic pouches...
Article-I.D.: hplabs.487
Posted: Fri Jun 25 12:00:15 1982
Received: Mon Jun 28 06:26:53 1982

Think not just of Radio Shack when you talk about what technology the Soviets
can make or obtain.  Right now, today, ANYONE can go out and buy, say, a SUN
Workstation and a disk, which would give the user lots of power (68000 10MHz),
very high level graphics (1K x 1K, and FAST), network capability (3Mbit ether),
and all of this in a very portable box!  I'll wager that about 10 or 15 of
these toy, all linking and talking on their network, could do justice to
95% of the applications on a shuttle.  All it would take is a little beefing
up of the durability of the system and (her's the catch) the right software,
and poof...  all the power you could ask for for about $300K....   

Granted, it's probably more than a notion to get 15 SUN stations out of the
country, but you can bet that it's possible, if difficult.

Again, as I said in an earlier message, though, it's the software in this
case that counts...

					Peter