ross%ulowell.csnet@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA (12/25/85)
From: Ross Miller <ross%ulowell.csnet@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA> *** spark *** The "usability" of a machine is different to all. For instance for one of my most recent tasks I had to put on my DBMS hat and deal with large amounts of student data here. I was using a CDC 825 and found that I could do a natural join of 1938 records in under a second of real time on a lightly loaded system. (This is the actual data in memory being joined). This is perfect for some people who don't care about their environment, but the DBMS I was using is at best, garbage. CDC NOS also leaves a lot to be desired. I have a fine monochrome display that works well, but I have a useless screen editor. Perhaps I should have used a non mainframe, like a Mac, as my example, but the argument would be much the same, save that I would hope editors exist for the Mac. I really have found multiprocessing to be useful. One may argue that the Amiga is not powerful enough, but for five jobs or less that are doing different tasks response time is still excellent for $2000. Then one argues, well five jobs is not enough. I've deadlocked a Vax 11/780 running VMS at 7 jobs. Where do you define the point "not enough". The point of the bouncing ball demo is not that it can exist on the Amiga, but that it can exist easily. Color graphics and multiprocessing to enhance the usability of a machine are here to stay. I also find it very annoying that with all this, like an Apollo DN660, does not have sound. The Amiga is a machine for those who want it all. If you want second best, then buy Atari/Apple/IBM. *** end *** All of this was generated by a random password program. Ross Miller, "ross%ulowell"@csnet-relay, decvax!wanginst!ulowell!ross