ted@imsvax.UUCP (Ted Holden) (12/18/86)
Glenn Piper of Penn St. asks: >I've been accumulating questions to post regarding a system I'd like to put >together. Some may be easy, others may not. This is cross-posted to a number >of categories, but please respond to either comp.sys.ibm.pc , or directly to >me ... FIB at PSUVM. >1) Is there any way to lock out users of an AT system from portions of a hard > disk? I'd like two different groups of people to use it, but one group > has data that they would like to remain confidential. Can it be done in > software or hardware? With high-speed AT compatibles down around $2000, including hard disk, these days, why bother? Far simpler just to buy two. >2) Has anybody had any experience (good or bad) with the Bernoulli Box? My > understanding is that it acts like a hard disk, but is removable. Is this > true? If so, it may be the answer to the above data security problem. > Also, any details on its operation would be appreciated. Since I may be > working with some good size files, how is access speed as compared to a > standard hard disk? The Bernoulli box is essentially a type of floppy disk. It has been priced out of the real world for the last two years and now the cut-rate houses are dumping them at half price. There is a reason. Look for cheaper and better alternatives this coming year from Kodak as well as several Japanese manufacturers. Most interesting of the lot will be a drive which writes 8 bits STRAIGHT DOWN THROUGH THE MEDIA, rather than in a pattern across it as has always been the case heretofore. >3) I would like to begin Desktop Publishing. I currently own a Xerox 4045 > laser printer, but very few software packages support it. Has anyone used > or read any reviews on Xerox's Ventura Publisher software? Has anybody > used or seen any other packages that supports the Xerox 4045. I was at an > Aldus Pagemaker demo last week and was very impressed...only thing is that > Aldus is in competition with Xerox in this field, and probably won't > support the Xerox 4045 for "QUITE SOME TIME." Ventura looks like my best > bet right now, but I'd like some more input. Look at two items lying slightly beyond the PC world before you decide. One is the Xerox 6085, absolutely professional, DOS compatible, and made to work with your 4045. These run $7000-$13000 or so depending on configuration. The other is the little $200 package called "The Graphic Artist" which runs on the Atari 520-1024 ST. This is a totally stunning WYSWYG word-processing, typesetting, and CAD/CAM package which can produce really professional output from HP laserjets and acceptable output for most uses from Epsons. Businessmen are basically correct in ignoring the Apple and Commadore 68000 products; they ignore the Atari product at their peril. >4) Is there any problem installing multiple hard disks on an AT system? > Heat, complexity, Murphy's 5'th law etc. Again, why bother? 80 meg disks for ATs can be had for $1200 or so, 300 meg Core disks for around $3000. Just buy one which is big enough in the first place. >5) What is the general consensus on mice? What are the good and bad points > between BUS mice systems and Serial Port mice? How about Mechanical v/s > optical? If you have to have a mouse, get the optical kind. > >6) I'm also taking recomendations on low/medium price Letter quality (18-24 > pin) Dot Matrix Printers. The only printers I've ever used have been > Epson... none of which have the quality I'm looking for. Suggestions? The Citizen SP and the Gemini NX series strike me as the best of the lower priced Epson compatibles. There is a free-ware package on the BBSs called "NICE.ARC" which gives the best LQ printing I've seen so far on dot matrix printers, better even than the native LQ modes. > >7) Does anybody have any experience with using the AT as a remote S/36 > workstation or up/downloading capability via communications software? > I'd like to hear anyone's experiences (harware/software) with this type > of application. Once you've used an AT for about six months, you'd never want to dirty your hands with a 36 again. Simply as a functional computer, I wouldn't trade my AT for a 36 even. A good computer should be able to solve differential equations, check your spelling for you, produce documents in Cyrillic for your Russian class on Thursday, play chess within 50 points of master level at no more than a few seconds a move, compile 5000 line programs in 6 or seven seconds (Mystic Pascal)..... My AT can do all of this. Can your 36? >8) Finally, what are your feelings about the difference of buying a REAL > IBM-PC/AT v/s clones. I've been looking at the PC-Limited AT's with > a lot of interest. Does anybody have one that can tell me how they > perform? If you're really against or for buying clones, tell me why. The clones cost about half or a third what IBM's do and they (the clones) don't break. IBM must be wishing they'd never heard the words "PC" or "micro-computer" along about now. Without IBM's interference, micros would never have achieved the standardization which is now allowing them to challenge minis and mainframes. And IBM? They invented the PC/DOS game and now they can't even play their own game successfully and the game is threatening to destroy their big Fortune 500 mainframe business. Kind of like letting the genie out of the bottle. The oldest baby-boomers, such as myself, have just now turned 40 or so, and many will be getting into senior management positions soon. I have a fabulous idea as to a quest or a distinction which one lucky member of this group might hope to attain. Could you imagine being able to tell your grandchildren that YOU were the first person to ever FIRE someone for buying IBM equipment? Ted Holden, IMS
news@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu (Usenet netnews) (12/19/86)
Organization : California Institute of Technology Keywords: From: tim@tomcat.Caltech.Edu (Tim Kay) Path: tomcat!tim In article <650@imsvax.UUCP> ted@imsvax.UUCP (Ted Holden) writes: >The clones cost about half or a third what IBM's do and they (the >clones) don't break. IBM must be wishing they'd never heard the words >"PC" or "micro-computer" along about now. Without IBM's interference, >micros would never have achieved the standardization which is now >allowing them to challenge minis and mainframes. And IBM? They >invented the PC/DOS game and now they can't even play their own game >successfully and the game is threatening to destroy their big Fortune >500 mainframe business. Kind of like letting the genie out of the >bottle. You've said several very interesting things here. First of all, which is more reliable, IBM or compatibles? Business people often think that, if you buy a machine from IBM, it must be more reliable than a machine from some small company. And I have seen many a flakey clone. However, I have also seen many lemons from IBM. Big Blue seems to have very poor quality control regarding their PCs. They also offer (by recent standards) an unreasonably short warranty and a very expensive maintenance contract. I am beginning to think that IBM equipment might cost more to keep running. Next, I can't see how PCs are competing with minis and mainframes. An 80[23]86 at 8 or even 16Mhz still doesn't pack a fraction of the computing power of a Vax 11/780. And, for the work I do, a Vax is a small machine. A 3090/400 is roughly 50 times as powerful. Finally, what is the PC/DOS game? I would attribute the fall in IBM's stock prices to their inability to innovate. They have been playing the object-code compatibility game for a long time now. But in recent years, software manufacturer's have figured out how to write large programs that aren't dependent upon a particular architecure. In other words, IBM's monopoly has finially been broken by companies that have figured paths of access to IBM's customers. On the other hand, IBM is a LONG way from dead. Just because their sales didn't live up to their optimistic projections doesn't mean they are in trouble. Timothy L. Kay tim@csvax.caltech.edu Department of Computer Science Caltech, 256-80 Pasadena, CA 91125
edwards@uwmacc.UUCP (mark edwards) (12/19/86)
In article <1373@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu> tim@tomcat.caltech.edu (Tim Kay) writes: >Next, I can't see how PCs are competing with minis and mainframes. An >80[23]86 at 8 or even 16Mhz still doesn't pack a fraction of the >computing power of a Vax 11/780. And, for the work I do, a Vax is >a small machine. A 3090/400 is roughly 50 times as powerful. > From what I heard the 386 has the CPU power of a VAX 780, of course I could have heard wrong, but even so, I can buy lots of 386's and even more 286's for the price of a VAX 780 and then what about the maintenance. Given that Universities get big discounts on all the DEC equipment it still costs lots of money for maintenance. I can afford to buy an entire replacement 286 a couple times over for the maintenance one pays for the Vax 780. The nice thing about PC's is that when we have 30 people using all our PC resources ( resource = 1 pc ) the pc doesn't bog down. This is not true for the VAX, if 30 people were using a VAX 780, well I usually log off then I can almost do the work by hand better. You may need your own powerful machine for your purposes, but most people do not and a PC on their desk is more than enough computing power, and very cheap computing power at that. mark -- edwards@unix.macc.wisc.edu {allegra, ihnp4, seismo}!uwvax!uwmacc!edwards UW-Madison, 1210 West Dayton St., Madison WI 53706
smvorkoetter@watmum.UUCP (Stefan M. Vorkoetter) (12/19/86)
In article <650@imsvax.UUCP> ted@imsvax.UUCP (Ted Holden) writes: >... Most interesting of the lot will be a >drive which writes 8 bits STRAIGHT DOWN THROUGH THE MEDIA, rather than >in a pattern across it as has always been the case heretofore. Not quite. It writes EACH bit through the media, not flat on the surface as before. The individual bits are still strung out serially.
news@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu (Usenet netnews) (12/20/86)
Organization : California Institute of Technology Keywords: From: tim@tomcat.Caltech.Edu (Tim Kay) Path: tomcat!tim In article <750@uwmacc.UUCP> edwards@unix.macc.wisc.edu.UUCP (mark edwards) writes: >In article <1373@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu> tim@tomcat.caltech.edu (Tim Kay) writes: >>Next, I can't see how PCs are competing with minis and mainframes. An >>80[23]86 at 8 or even 16Mhz still doesn't pack a fraction of the >>computing power of a Vax 11/780. And, for the work I do, a Vax is >>a small machine. A 3090/400 is roughly 50 times as powerful. >> > From what I heard the 386 has the CPU power of a VAX 780, of course If all you need to do is non-floating point calculations, an 80386 might be about as fast as a 780. However, the throughput of a 780 is much higher. I don't know the particular numbers for a 386, but take a 68020/68881 like a Sun III/160. I run non-floating point, and it runs about 2 times a 780. If I run floating point, it runs about 1/11th the speed of a 780. Also, a Sun can't do disk i/o very fast. > The nice thing about PC's is that when we have 30 people using all > our PC resources ( resource = 1 pc ) the pc doesn't bog down. This > is not true for the VAX, if 30 people were using a VAX 780, well > I usually log off then I can almost do the work by hand better. I am not sure I understand your "( resource = 1 pc )" comment. If it means that all 30 people are using 1 PC, then I'll ask you to compare your PC to a 780 running in single-user mode. You'll find that it doesn't bog down and it runs much faster at the same time. On the other hand, if you mean that you have a PC per person, I would agree that 30 PC's is more computing power than a 780. > You may need your own powerful machine for your purposes, but > most people do not, and a PC on their desk is more than enough > computing power, and very cheap computing power at that. My posting was in response to another comment that PC's are cutting in on IBM's mainframe market, and I wanted to suggest that this simply isn't so. I'd like to hear other points of view regarding this assertion. I like PC's, and I am typing this on one now. Timothy L. Kay tim@csvax.caltech.edu Department of Computer Science Caltech, 256-80 Pasadena, CA 91125