mats@forbrk.UUCP (03/17/87)
I will soon be in the position of advising a Physicist (Theoretical,
if it matters) on the purchase of a computer system. Since I have been
spending most of my time the last few years dealing with business-oriented
computer systems, I have some research to do. I felt that it might be
useful to ask this group if it had any suggestions to offer. I would
appreciate if any responses were sent to me by E-mail, as I am only able
to post to this group, not read it. If any interest is indicated, I would
be happy to post a summary to this group of any responses I might receive.
The most important use for the system will be the preparation of course
lecture notes. Thus, software/hardware for the entry, display, and printout
of equations is the major requirement for the system. A WSIWYG (What
You See Is What You Get) approach would be greatly prefrred over, for
example, the UNIX tools "eqn" and "nroff" (or "troff"). I have seen
a few such packages for IBM PC-class machines (editorial comment: YUCK),
but have not been impressed - there must be something better.
The machine will also be used for occasional numerical computations;
thus a secondary requirement becomes reasonable floating point
performance/precision, and a not-too-braindamaged FORTRAN compiler.
A precsion equivalent to that provided for by IEEE 64-bit Double
Precision would be sufficient.
The machine will only be used by a single user, so multi-user type
performance is not absolutely critical, but it should do the things
it will be called upon to do well - "text" processing and occasional
numerical analysis. Raw performance questions take a back seat to price -
the machine will be purchased with personal funds, not departmental
budget, and thus a complete system - CPU itself, terminal/monitor,
printer (good enough to handle integrals and other such symbols),
and software should be something within the range of an individual to
purchase. I am not aware of any equipment which fits these requirements
particularly well (or in fact, which even comes close), thus this call
for help.
Thank you for any assistance.
Mats D. Wichmann
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