[comp.sys.ibm.pc] recommendations wanted

paulj@b8.INGR.COM (Joey Paul x4129 ) (01/24/90)

Hi,

  I'm posting for a friend who's business is desperately needing to upgrade
from and 8088 with a 20meg drive and 1-360k to something *faster*.  This
machine will be doing a considerable amount of number crunching/disk accessing
etc.  Any recommendations?  She doesn't want to purchase *too* much hardware.
However, she's wanting fast, not necessarily color, 40meg, 1-360k floppy
and 1-1.44meg 3.5 floppy.  She's looking at in the future going to a network.
SHould she go with a 386?

-- 
.                                     |     Joey Paul  (205) 730-4129   .
.      "Ye must be born again."       |  uunet!ingr!dj4104!paulj (UUCP) .
.                                     | dj4104!paulj@ingr.com (INTERNET). 

REISERT@VICTIM.enet.dec.com (Jim -- LTN1-2/H03 -- DTN 226-6905 24-Jan-1990 1057) (01/25/90)

 
In article <183@b8.INGR.COM>, paulj@b8.INGR.COM (Joey Paul x4129 ) writes...
 
>This machine will be doing a considerable amount of number crunching/disk
>accessing etc....Should she go with a 386?
 
No, she should go with a 486 :-)
 
Yes, she  should  get  at  least  a  386,  preferably  with a floating point
coprocessor.   Northgate  has  20  MHz  systems  for around 3K monochrome w/
coprocessor,  68  Meg  hard  disk and both kinds of floppies ("Country *and*
Western").   A  cache would probably help too, but I'm now past my own level
of incompetence.
 
jim
 
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James J. Reisert                Internet: reisert@tallis.enet.dec.com
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akcs.amparsonjr@vpnet.UUCP (Anthony M. Parson, Jr.) (02/02/90)

I can vouch for the improvement that the 8087 will make in Generic Cadd.
On an 8088 4.77 board, I thought the computer locked up when I added
alphanumeric characters to a drawing, and then either rotated it, or moved
a chunk of the info to a different spot in the drawing.
On an 8088 at 8 mhz, it didn't look like it stopped, but I could see each
individual pixel being drawn for the alphanumeric characters.
On an 8088 at 8 mhz with 8087 (8 mhz), things REALLY improved-- I found I
could live with this.  Never got to try an 80286 with generic cadd, but I
will say an 80386 (25 mhz) without a coprocessor, is STILL faster by far
than the 8088/8087 combination.  Moral: get a fast 80286 or 80386, and
possibly save the cost of buying a math coprocessor.  Of course, it depends
how complicate your ddrawings are, how large, if you use letters / fonts
to record dimensions, how many layers, etc.