herrj@valnet.UUCP (Jonathan Herr) (06/27/91)
Hello! Gee, I hope someone out there can help me with this problem. Things are really bad already and bound to get worse. First, a little background info ... System: AT&T 6386E WGS 20 MHz 8 Meg. RAM AT&T IPC 802 Intelligent Ports Card (8 serial, 2 Parallel ports) 4 terminals on serial ports 2 Dot Matrix printers on parallel ports OS: AT&T Unix SysV/386 r3.2 I just recently installed two of the four terminals and began experiencing some very serious slowdown on the system. I can attribute some of this to users popping up DOS shells under VP/ix, but I wouldn't think that it would hamper the system to the extent that it has. The main software that the DOSers are using is MultiMate Advantage II (which has recently been ported to Unix but they want $1400 for a five-user version). The other system hog is me. I run FoxBase+ inside 3 to 4 virtual terminals at any given time. This, however, is the Unix version. I meant to bring home the configuration of the /etc/conf/cf.d/mtune file but forgot it. Basically, though, it's been configured for 4 Meg of RAM. The other 4 Meg was installed about a month ago and I really don't have the experience to change the system's configuration. I've tried but gotten several PANIC messages and the system halts. Anyway, here's the deal. I've got $1300 (and not a penny more) to spend to speed things up. Seeing that I use FoxBase+ pretty heavily and on the side of the box they "highly" recommend a math coprocessor, I've thought about getting one. The only thing it that is that AT&T hardware seems to be very propietary and I imagine that getting one is going to cost me. Also, I'm not so sure that it would improve anything, either. It's not like it's using any trig functions. It's mainly indexing. What am I looking for? I'm not sure. Perhaps a better configuration in the mtune file would help. I KNOW that a Unix word processor would help, but I can't convince anyone that changing from MM would be good and I know it would be difficult (we have K's of MM documents that would have to be converted). Also, we use the .PRN files from MM to run mass mailings on DOS machines. I think that a coprocessor would help, but I'm the only one that would really put it to good use I think. So, if you have any suggestions -- so long as they are within the $1300 budget -- I'd love to hear from you. Many thanks in advance ------ -=- -=-Jon-=- -=- herrj@valnet.uucp With age comes wisdom. CompSci BBS +1 812 876-4407 3/12/24 With wisdom comes responsibility. Free Access to Usenet and UUCP e-mail With responsibility comes anguish.
herrj@valnet.UUCP (Jonathan Herr) (06/27/91)
I forgot to mention that I will be adding 4 more terminals Friday. That's what I meant when I said that things will be getting worse. I can see each one popping up that DOS shell. EEEEYYYYUUUCK!! -=- -=-Jon-=- -=- herrj@valnet.uucp With age comes wisdom. CompSci BBS +1 812 876-4407 3/12/24 With wisdom comes responsibility. Free Access to Usenet and UUCP e-mail With responsibility comes anguish.