taylor@hplabs.HP.COM (Dave Taylor) (11/09/87)
I'm on the verge of buying myself a PC and have pretty much no clue
whatsoever about the marketplace. So I figured, gee, must be a common
point of discussion in Comp.Sys.IBM.PC, right? Well, I checked back
for three months (the oldest archive I could find) and not a single
posting about it!
So, I'll risk the wrath of the readers of this group and ask for
hardward and software recommendations (via email, please!).
The situation:
Through the interest of a couple of associated of mine, I've a
need to learn how to write programs under Microsoft Windows. At
the same time, I moonlight as a professional technical writer
(see next month's "Computer Language" for a good, controversial
article) and want a system where I can produce very high quality
documents. [I don't necessarily need a laserprinter of my own,
though - I can always nip over to a friends with a prepared disk]
Since I was 'weaned' on Unix, it'd be ideal if I could retain the
ability to have a unix-ish OS on the box too (e.g. Xenix) but I
won't be picking that up initially.
I'll be bringing the system up as a Fido 'point' and as a UUCP
leaf node (via the UFGATE software), and will inevitably be doing
a fair bit of software development too.
Finally, I have a 2400 baud modem, might be getting a 9600 baud
one, and would like to be able to toss my terminal in favour of
the computer too.
My main constraint is that I want something reasonably fast, with
at least a 40 Meg hard disk, and space to upgrade as I get the
funds (nothing new, eh?). I don't even know if the '286 is a
reasonable requirement, but mah Dad said I should definitely go for
it while I'm at it...
All this, of course, for the absolute minimal cost, ideally.
So, fellow net-land-ers, anyone have any great suggestions on what
I should buy? What C Compiler am I going to find easiest to use
coming from an HP Unix Workstation/VAX BSD Unix environment? Can
I get "vi" for my PC? Is it worth it? <etc>
PLEASE reply by email, and if I think there's enough interest I shall
summarize and post to this group.
Thanks immensely, y'all!
-- Dave Taylor
...{gatech, ihnp4, mcnc, <etc>}!hplabs!taylor or taylor@hplabs.HP.COM