mryman@oucsace.cs.OHIOU.EDU (Mark Ryman) (06/28/91)
I work for Ohio University's Computing and Learning Services department. We have a lab in our main library which contains 24 rather old and outdated PC's. These machines are IBM model 5150 with two floppy drives, no hard drives and monochrome monitors. Our department has recently decided to allocate some funding to purchase new equipment this fall. They have asked me to make recommendations for new equipment. Unfortunately, the only PC experience I have is what I have obtained working in this lab of computer dinosaur machines. Granted, they would probably be better off asking someone a little more knowledgeable. However, the burden is on my shoulders, so rather than wade through magazine articles that are mostly written in terminology which is over my head, I am humbly asking for advice from those of you who know much more than I do about IBM equipment. I really don't have much to go on but here it is. What they have in mind is a handful of 386SX machines for a start. I asked what type of capabilities they prefer. The reply was that they should be efficient for handling students needs for approximately the next five years. Currently, the majority of our users come to the lab to use Wordperfect 4.2(soon to be upgraded), Lotus 1-2-3 Rel 1a, Mystat and a few packages for specific classes. With more powerful machines, I'm sure the variety of software used here will increase considerably. We would like the machines to be capable of running Windows and we would like the machines to have mice. A few of the questions I need to answer are: What is SuperVGA? Does it reduce the amount of "bit banging" necessary for graphics processing? Would SuperVGA monitors be worth the extra money for our purposes? Basically, what they want from me is a recommendation for the configuration: amount of RAM, size of hard drive, type of monitor, peripherals, etc. Presently, the department does not have intentions of networking these machines when they are purchased. I realize that a complete list of software to be used on these machines would be helpful for selection. I've provided all the information I have. The only thing I can add is that this lab is used primarily by non-CS major students for word processing and business oriented computing. The machines will not be used for much programming. If anyone out there has some useful answers and/or advice for my dilemma, I would be most grateful if you could send some e-mail my way. Thanks in advance. -Mark Ryman