So I looked at the relevant configs:

cheapest Sun Blade 2000. It can have up to 8GB of RAM: $10.995,00 But 8GB are not available, as there are only 512MB sticks and 8 slots. Given very optimistic prices, one would have to pay around $17.000,00 to get 8GB

(we paid $7000,- for our 3GB dual-P3 with 100GB RAID)

Ok. Let's look a little bit further:

The smallest reasonable config would be a Sun Fire V480 Entry-Level Server. With 16GB RAM it costs: $46.995,-

Big Iron for us...

Bye
 PetaMem

Abigail's point is that 64-bits needn't cost that much and isn't big iron. So Abigail points to a low-cost 64-bit piece of hardware with pathetic specs. No joke. It is a 64-bit CPU and isn't big iron. 64-bit has to do with how the CPU works and not anything else.

An even better example is the Nintendo-64. The 64 in this piece of outmoded hardware is the fact that it is a 64-bit computer. It isn't big iron, it is cheaper than the Sun, and they don't even sell computers that pathetic any more. Also your playstation is a 128-bit computer, and many video cards are 256-bit. Yet neither qualifies as super-big iron. Video happens to a problem where wider words are good.

I have a friend who is a Sun Hardware Salesperson for his sins. I spoke to him a few minutes ago and asked him what iit would cost for a Sun machine that could handle up to 12GB ram. The answer:

E280R Server twin 900Mhz UltraSPARL III processors, 2x73GB fc-al drives, DVD-ROM. - £17,670 with 4GB standard memory (max.8 GB). Just under £5,000 to expand this to 12 GB. Only possible using non-approved DataRam 2GB DIMMS. (Around $35,000)

V480R as above expandable to 4 CPU's and 16GB - £18,507 + £5,000 for the extra ram. (Approx. $37000)

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