6sigma2@polari.UUCP (Brian Matthews) (02/16/90)
We're looking into configuring a '386 system, and I'd like your advice.
The system will be used for Unix development by about four people, one of
whom will be using X and Motif. We'll also have a couple of uucp lines with
Telebits attached. The system we're looking at now consists of something
like the following:
25MHz uncached '386 motherboard w/8 Megabytes RAM
VGA card and monitor
150 Meg (formatted), ~12ms access SCSI drive
60 Meg streamer tape drive
8 port intelligent serial card
System V Release 3.2 from SCO
SCO's OpenDesktop (X, Motif, and development software)
other misc stuff (keyboard, 5-1/4" drive, rodent, etc.)
So, given this, some questions:
1. Would the extra cost for a 33MHz cached motherboard be worth it,
particularly being we're going to run X? We've been quoted about
$1000 more for the 33Mhz cached vs. 25MHz uncached. Is this
reasonable?
2. Does X support the higher resolution VGA cards, or only 640x480? Any
particular brand of VGA card and monitor you like?
3. Do I want to stick with a SCSI drive, or would ESDI be ok? We'll
probably hang another drive and maybe another (or different) tape
drive on the machine, which having the SCSI controller should allow.
Will ESDI?
4. We'd like the 125 Meg streamer tape for internal use, but we need
to write the 60 Meg tapes for our customers. So far we haven't been
able to find a 125 Meg drive that will write the 60 Meg tapes (they
all read them). Does anyone know of such a drive?
5. Any recommendations on serial cards? We need 8 ports, all of which
must support hardware flow control (RTS/CTS, as well as DTR/DSR/CD).
We're looking at intelligent cards thinking this will remove some
of the burden of character processing from the CPU. Does this make
sense? Is an intelligent card worth the extra cost?
6. Anything else that I've forgotten or should consider?
Thanks for your time. We're new to the '386 world, and certainly would
appreciate help from people who are running '386 Unix systems. I'll
post a summary of any mailed responses I get in a couple of weeks or so.
Thanx again,
--
Brian L. Matthews blm@6sceng.UUCP