cro@cs.arizona.edu (Charles R. Oldham) (06/21/91)
Hi *, Is anyone out there running an 80486 box with either SCO Unix or Interactive's 386ix? My office is looking at purchasing either a 486 based machine, a Sun, or a RS/6000 machine, and I'm really interested in what kind of performance a 486/33 or 486/25 can deliver. I need to be able to do the following: - Run the Uni*Verse command language (lang like dBase) - Connect to the Internet for mail and news via TCP/IP - Provide access for between 5 and 25 users, 10 of those will probably be dialup over 2400 baud modems - Provide standard local email for above users - Possibly run FoxBase or dBase - Have enough power left over for me (the sysadmin) to handle some heavy programming chores without having to step out for a cup of coffee everytime I run a make. Speed degradation is a real concern for us, as we are providing some computing resources to non-computer-users. Unfortunately, these non-computer-users are also the ones who partially determine our budget, so the machine will have to be quite responsive. While we're at it, can someone also fill me in on the differences and advantages of either 386ix or SCO Unix? I know they both are sysV based unices, but do they provide some of the BSD niceties also (i.e. job control)? Please email to me. I'll summarize if there is interest. Thanks in advance! *-----------------------------------------------------------------------------* * Charles R. (C. R.) Oldham | Bitnet: OLDHAM@ARIZRVAX * * Department of Computer Science | Internet: * * University of Arizona | (Preferred) * * Tucson, Arizona | cro@caslon.cs.arizona.edu * * USA |or oldham@rvax.ccit.arizona.edu* * | IXOYE * *-----------------------------------------------------------------------------* * #include <disclaimer.yuk> * *-----------------------------------------------------------------------------*
fangchin@leland.Stanford.EDU (Chin Fang) (06/21/91)
In article <1587@caslon.cs.arizona.edu>, cro@cs.arizona.edu (Charles R. Oldham) writes: |> Hi *, |> |> Is anyone out there running an 80486 box with either SCO Unix |> or Interactive's 386ix? My office is looking at purchasing either a |> 486 based machine, a Sun, or a RS/6000 machine, and I'm really |> interested in what kind of performance a 486/33 or 486/25 can deliver. As someone who takes care of RISC 6000s on a daily basis, I venture to give you my own opinions, I post it instead of mailing because I believe this is of general interest. As RISC 6000 low end model is on par with high end 33Mhz 486s... |> |> I need to be able to do the following: |> |> - Run the Uni*Verse command language (lang like dBase) I am not familar with this product. If it's PD, I would say you can port it. If it's commerical, check with your vendor. |> - Connect to the Internet for mail and news via TCP/IP Sure, no problem on this one. As long as your news/mail server is NOT an IBM I am serious about this. Folks at IBM Austin are trying to fix this, but meantime, you have to watch out. |> - Provide access for between 5 and 25 users, 10 of those will |> probably be dialup over 2400 baud modems That's fine. AIX 3.1 even comes with xmodem. I built zmodem/kermit without much hassle. They work too. |> - Provide standard local email for above users That sure works. |> - Possibly run FoxBase or dBase Again, these are commerical products, so please check with your vendor(s). |> - Have enough power left over for me (the sysadmin) to handle |> some heavy programming chores without having to step out for |> a cup of coffee everytime I run a make. |> RISC 6000s, if not NFS networked, provide outstanding disk performance. For sysadmin job, it has plenty power. The SMIT system admin interface is fairly easy to use too. Better in many ways than 386 unix sysadmin stuff. |> Speed degradation is a real concern for us, as we are |> providing some computing resources to non-computer-users. |> Unfortunately, these non-computer-users are also the ones who |> partially determine our budget, so the machine will have to be quite |> responsive. |> I would say if you or your usrs need to do floating point intensive work, RISC 6000s, even with their rough edges, are worth to consider. Otherwise, GO WITH either SUN or a well designed 33Mhz 486. AIX 3.1 is not a matured product (at least not matured as SUN OS or SYSV stuff). The raw power of this line is impressive but if you want to network them in a hiterogeneous environment, you will experience quite a lot funny things :-( In addition, porting many PD things to RISC 6000s often is a test of one's hacking ability, even though none is too difficult. But they do cost you time/energy. It doesn't come with X11R4. The "enhanced?" X11R3 from IBM sucks! but you can build R4 libs/fonts/rgb for it without much hassle. No R4 server however. The AIX Jounal File System is robust but if you NFS your machine, you can't enjoy it either. This has to be taken into account. You may want to read comp.unix.aix, a news group focused on RISC 6000s and to certain extent, PS2 runing AIX. It's from IBM Austin and many AIX developers are active in this group. It has been a good src of help for me. The on line docs from IBM, in my opinion, is better in many ways than the traditional man(1) however. Of course, man is also available too. |> While we're at it, can someone also fill me in on the |> differences and advantages of either 386ix or SCO Unix? I know they |> both are sysV based unices, but do they provide some of the BSD |> niceties also (i.e. job control)? |> System V r4.x offers you many BSD features. check with FAQ of this group. Finally, I cite a few numbers as reference. They are for RISC 6000 320. For 320 H (the upgraded version, and cheaper too), multiply them by 1.3. 29.5 MIPS, 8.5 MFLOPS, SPECmarks 24.6. The second one is pretty realistic as my own fp jobs runs about 1.5 times faster than what they need on a SUN SPARC 2. 33Mhz 486 is about 1/5th of such as far as floating point performance is concerned. But fast hardware never can substitute a smooth/polished/robust OS, so you may want to consider the pros and cons in this area carefully. Sincerely Chin Fang Mechanical Engineering Department Stanford University fangchin@leland.stanford.edu
rbraun@spdcc.COM (Rich Braun) (06/21/91)
I run SCO Unix on a 386-33 with 8M main memory, and have concluded that its scheduling and I/O operations make multi-tasking use quite noticeable. If I run a backup or a compile in the background, system responsiveness is quite a bit slower. It leads me to wonder what the system would be like if it were used as a true multi-user system; our company has a policy of giving each developer a 386 on their desktop, so it's not really an issue for me. Having done some O/S development before, I'd be curious to hear how the various flavors of Unix stack up under heavy multi-tasking loads. Are there system tuning parameters which can help guarantee responsiveness to interactive users? -rich
rcd@ico.isc.com (Dick Dunn) (06/22/91)
fangchin@leland.Stanford.EDU (Chin Fang) writes: cro@cs.arizona.edu (Charles R. Oldham) writes: > |> Is anyone out there running an 80486 box with either SCO Unix > |> or Interactive's 386ix? My office is looking at purchasing either a > |> 486 based machine, a Sun, or a RS/6000 machine... ... > As someone who takes care of RISC 6000s on a daily basis, I venture to > give you my own opinions, I post it instead of mailing because I believe > this is of general interest. As RISC 6000 low end model is on par with > high end 33Mhz 486s... In performance, perhaps; not in price--*unless* you're going with one of the higher-priced name brands for the 486. Yeah, if you go with Compaq or IBM for a 486, you'll pay enough that you might be close to the price of the 6000, else not. (Remember, when pricing out a 6000, that you need a *large* amount of disk before it's useful by itself.) -- Dick Dunn rcd@ico.isc.com -or- ico!rcd Boulder, CO (303)449-2870 ...Simpler is better.
apl@world.std.com (Anthony P Lawrence) (06/22/91)
I am aware of (work with, on, and around) quite a number of 80386 and '486 systems running 10-40 character terminals with quite reasonable responsiveness. It is my gut feeling (somebody who knows what's going on could comment?) that running on the CONSOLE is always slower than running on a terminal, and that anyone using the console will slow down other people at terminals as well as their own jobs. This could be TOTAL imagination on my part-after all, I am constantly on different machines, with different numbers of users, different terminal boards , different applications- so the word subjective is really stretched here. Tony
cpcahil@virtech.uucp (Conor P. Cahill) (06/22/91)
fangchin@leland.Stanford.EDU (Chin Fang) writes: >As someone who takes care of RISC 6000s on a daily basis, I venture to >give you my own opinions, I post it instead of mailing because I believe >this is of general interest. As RISC 6000 low end model is on par with >high end 33Mhz 486s... One of our clients has a pair of 6000s. The low end model fees about the speed of our 33Mhz 386. The other model is about 30% faster. (They are now talking about getting a new disk drive and IBM has quoted them a price of $4,500 or so for a 330MB SCSI drive) >|> - Have enough power left over for me (the sysadmin) to handle >|> some heavy programming chores without having to step out for >|> a cup of coffee everytime I run a make. The 6000s do a fairly good job compiling, but when it comes to linking they are as slow as som 286s. If we run two links at the same time, the entire machine grinds to a hault. I'm not saying the 6000s are dogs, just that they aren't screamers either. -- I guess these are the views of VTI - since it is my consulting company. Conor P. Cahill (703)430-9247 uunet!virtech!cpcahil Virtual Technologies, Inc. 46030 Manekin Plaza Sterling, VA 22170
fangchin@leland.Stanford.EDU (Chin Fang) (06/22/91)
In article <1991Jun22.015603.14718@virtech.uucp>, cpcahil@virtech.uucp (Conor P. Cahill) writes: |> fangchin@leland.Stanford.EDU (Chin Fang) writes: |> |> >As someone who takes care of RISC 6000s on a daily basis, I venture to |> >give you my own opinions, I post it instead of mailing because I believe |> >this is of general interest. As RISC 6000 low end model is on par with |> >high end 33Mhz 486s... I should have said that price-wise, after educational discount, a RISC 6000 320 is on par with high end name brand 33Mhz 486s (nowadays, for a 320H with 355 MB Maxtor SCSI II drive, a school can get it around 11K) |> One of our clients has a pair of 6000s. The low end model fees about |> the speed of our 33Mhz 386. The other model is about 30% faster. That's a bit an exaggeration I am afraid. My 320 is NFS mounted to a SUN 4, and I think it's definitely lively than a 33 Mhz 386, which I have seen many. BTW, your client may need to upgrade his/her machines OS to 3005/2006. The earlier ones are so terrible even IBMers hated 'em (I do too as I suffered from 3001 to current patch level, and in just three months! AIX 3.1 is definitely of pre-alpha quality, no joke here) This is a text book example that lousy software ruined superlative hardware. |> (They are now talking about getting a new disk drive and IBM has quoted |> them a price of $4,500 or so for a 330MB SCSI drive) I can understand this, IBM RISC binaries are FAT! X+unix need AT LEAST 16 Megs RAM to run without swapping. As most readers of this group know, you can run 386 Unix with X11R4 on top in 8 megs quite comfortably, at least when there is only one user. I once posted a joke in comp.unix.aix conjecturing that IBM is going to produce the first kernel that won't boot with less than 100 Megs RAM :-) [RISC 6000 won't boot with 8 megs, I know this for a fact] The drives are OEMed from Maxtor, I don't understand why BIG BLUE like to rip off people like this, shame on it. These drives are no different from Maxtors used in say, your favorite 3/486 boxes. |> >|> - Have enough power left over for me (the sysadmin) to handle |> >|> some heavy programming chores without having to step out for |> >|> a cup of coffee everytime I run a make. |> |> The 6000s do a fairly good job compiling, but when it comes to linking |> they are as slow as som 286s. If we run two links at the same time, |> the entire machine grinds to a hault. The xlc compiler generates pretty good error msgs, linking is slow but per AIX developers next door at IBM PALO ALTO, they are working on it (finger crossed). Executables generated in general is fairly fast executing, as far as my own apps are concerned. |> I'm not saying the 6000s are dogs, just that they aren't screamers either. |> They are screamers once you run floating point things in memory without touching hard disks. Definitely FOUR TIMES faster than your everyday 33Mhz 486s. CISC is woefully inadequte in this regard. When I was asked to enrich our RISC 6000s about three months ago, I hated 'em. I always rlogined into my RISC 6000 320 from my SUN SPARC 1+(I have both on my desk), then I started running my own research codes, floating point intensive ones, on my 320, gradually I developed liking to 'em. Now I sit in front of mine 320 all day long. I even have gone so far as to port so many things to it that it's /usr/local/bin is "richer" than our SUNs in some ways, to my head SA's dismay :-). I haven't touched my SPARC 2 for a month by now. Slow number crunchers don't get my attention :-) I am a mechanical engineer first, so most things I do have something to do with number crunching, I guess that's why even with it's awful OS/lousy R3 server (pretty fast with a 50 MHz TI34010 however), I now like my 320. I guess most UNIX programmers don't user floating point and if that's the case, AIX3.1+X suck. Don't get 'em (hardware is fine however, other than the flickering SONY Trinitron flat screen monitor) Sincerely, Chin Fang Mechanical Engineering Department Stanford University fangchin@leland.stanford.edu
john@jwt.UUCP (John Temples) (06/23/91)
In article <1991Jun22.064103.15333@leland.Stanford.EDU> fangchin@leland.Stanford.EDU (Chin Fang) writes: >As most readers of this group know, you can run 386 Unix with X11R4 on >top in 8 megs quite comfortably, at least when there is only one user and you're not running Motif. I had my first close encounter with Motif last week, and was appalled to see one xterm and one Motif demo start an 8 meg system swapping. -- John W. Temples -- john@jwt.UUCP (uunet!jwt!john)
fangchin@leland.Stanford.EDU (Chin Fang) (06/23/91)
In article <1991Jun23.051631.20763@jwt.UUCP>, john@jwt.UUCP (John Temples) writes: |> In article <1991Jun22.064103.15333@leland.Stanford.EDU> fangchin@leland.Stanford.EDU (Chin Fang) writes: |> >As most readers of this group know, you can run 386 Unix with X11R4 on |> >top in 8 megs quite comfortably, at least when there is only one user |> |> and you're not running Motif. I had my first close encounter with Motif |> last week, and was appalled to see one xterm and one Motif demo start an |> 8 meg system swapping. Hmm... I only said X11R4, which usually implies the standard distribution from MIT. I guess you agree? Welcome to the age of FAT (fat applications trendy). I often tell people, women included of course, that a particular three letter word is worse than any four letter words. One time I ran SUN's Openwin on a SPARC 1+ with only 8 megs, result? the poor HD got such a superb work out that even Jean Fonda would feel jealous! Yo'al have a nice weekend. Chin Fang Mechanical Engineering Department Stanford University fangchin@leland.stanford.edu
rfarris@rfengr.com (Rick Farris) (06/24/91)
In article <1991Jun23.051631.20763@jwt.UUCP> john@jwt.UUCP (John Temples) writes: > I had my first close encounter with Motif last week, and > was appalled to see one xterm and one Motif demo start an > 8 meg system swapping. It gets better. I upgraded my system to 16 MB, and with a normal complement of clients (2 scoterms, zmail, poste, 3 xloads, xbiff and xclock) sar shows the following: /usr/rfarris> sar -r 1 placid placid 3.2 2 i386 06/23/91 13:25:44 freemem freeswp 13:25:45 180 40000 Yup, 16 MB of memory and I'm only 700k away from paging. Exclaim or Frame (with it's 2.6 MB kernel) immediately push the system into page-land. This is with the stock ODT 1.1 kernel; I didn't increase kernel resources when I added memory. The good news is that memory is only ~$44/MB. I paid $700 for the entire 16 MB. -- Rick Farris RF Engineering POB M Del Mar, CA 92014 voice (619) 259-6793 rfarris@rfengr.com ...!ucsd!serene!rfarris serenity bbs 259-7757
balson@3d.enet.dec.com (My name is...) (06/25/91)
In article <1991Jun22.064103.15333@leland.Stanford.EDU>, fangchin@leland.Stanford.EDU (Chin Fang) writes... >In article <1991Jun22.015603.14718@virtech.uucp>, cpcahil@virtech.uucp (Conor P. Cahill) writes: >|> fangchin@leland.Stanford.EDU (Chin Fang) writes: >|> > >The drives are OEMed from Maxtor, I don't understand why BIG BLUE like to rip >off people like this, shame on it. These drives are no different from Maxtors >used in say, your favorite 3/486 boxes. Hmmm, yea, DEC does the same thing. I'm not sure what the exact price of a disk is for a DEC workstation. But the disks are the same that can be had on the open market/mail order for PC's. the only difference being that micro code was added to prevent them from being used in any machine other than a DEC workstation. This in my opinion, is *NOT* what open systems is all about. I should be able to install any SCSI disk that I have for my PC into any workstation anad visa versa. But I cant. Because I cannot do this makes those machines proprietary not matter how *OPEN* those manafactures say they are. I could go on about this for but . . . Jim Balson Consultant
bill@unixland.natick.ma.us (Bill Heiser) (06/26/91)
In article <1991Jun24.214207.21425@engage.pko.dec.com> balson@3d.enet.dec.com (My name is...) writes: >on the open market/mail order for PC's. the only difference being that >micro code was added to prevent them from being used in any machine other than >a DEC workstation. This in my opinion, is *NOT* what open systems is all about. >I should be able to install any SCSI disk that I have for my PC into any >workstation anad visa versa. But I cant. Because I cannot do this makes those >machines proprietary not matter how *OPEN* those manafactures say they are. I This is ABSURD!!!! What does DEC have to gain by making their drives unusable by "the rest of the world?" Nobody would pay ridiculous DEC prices for DEC drives for other machines anyway, but the principle stinks. Does anyone know if SUN does the same ?? or can a Sun drive be moved to another non-Sun machine ?? -- bill@unixland.natick.ma.us ...!uunet!think!unixland!bill OR ..!uunet!world!unixland!bill heiser@world.std.com Public Access Unix 508-655-3848(2400) 508-651-8723(HST) 508-651-8733(PEP-V32)
jca@pnet01.cts.com (John C. Archambeau) (06/26/91)
bill@unixland.natick.ma.us (Bill Heiser) writes: >In article <1991Jun24.214207.21425@engage.pko.dec.com> balson@3d.enet.dec.com (My name is...) writes: > >>on the open market/mail order for PC's. the only difference being that >>micro code was added to prevent them from being used in any machine other than >>a DEC workstation. This in my opinion, is *NOT* what open systems is all about. >>I should be able to install any SCSI disk that I have for my PC into any >>workstation anad visa versa. But I cant. Because I cannot do this makes those >>machines proprietary not matter how *OPEN* those manafactures say they are. I > >This is ABSURD!!!! What does DEC have to gain by making their drives >unusable by "the rest of the world?" Nobody would pay ridiculous >DEC prices for DEC drives for other machines anyway, but the principle >stinks. > >Does anyone know if SUN does the same ?? or can a Sun drive be moved >to another non-Sun machine ?? Sun drives can be taken from a Sun to any other machine. It was common practice in the company I use to work for to pull the 105 Mb drive (which is really a Quantum P-105S (piece of crud)) and put it on a Mac when it outlived its usefulness do to it being rather small. // JCA /* **--------------------------------------------------------------------------* ** Flames : /dev/null | MS-DOS??? ** ARPANET : crash!pnet01!jca@nosc.mil | I don't think so! (*BOP*) ** INTERNET: jca@pnet01.cts.com | Homey don't play dat! ** UUCP : {nosc ucsd hplabs!hp-sdd}!crash!pnet01!jca **--------------------------------------------------------------------------* */
rbraun@spdcc.COM (Rich Braun) (06/27/91)
bill@unixland.natick.ma.us (Bill Heiser) writes: >This is ABSURD!!!! What does DEC have to gain by making their drives >unusable by "the rest of the world?" Ah, you have it backwards: DEC has a lot to gain by forcing The DEC Installed Base to buy DEC drives, rather than letting them mail-order drives from whomever. Another company which has long done things this way is Tandy. The Tandy 1000 computer, for example, didn't have DMA logic on the motherboard; they put it into their add-on hard disk controller card. So you had to buy their hard-drive kit instead of someone else's. I long ago gave up on Tandy's "cheap" home computers for this reason. I note with some bemusement (and a little shock!) that DEC has given up on the O/S business by handing Ultrix over to SCO. What a sad day in Maynard... VAX/VMS is a rapidly decaying dinosaur (with a huge installed base, just like TOPS-10 did in 1982...), so I'm not sure where DEC will go next. -rich
alex@micro-ix.UUCP (alex) (06/28/91)
In article <1991Jun25.231318.8991@unixland.natick.ma.us>, bill@unixland.natick.ma.us (Bill Heiser) writes: > > Does anyone know if SUN does the same ?? or can a Sun drive be moved > to another non-Sun machine ?? > Not. I had installed SunOS successfully having very little problems (correct parameters for particular disk format) after our orignal disk was blown up. Alex Micro/Ix.Inc
wtm@uhura.neoucom.EDU (Bill Mayhew) (06/28/91)
Another vendor that makes life tough is is Big Blue. I found out the hard way that IBM wites some magic incantations to the CE track on the drive. I took a so-called "Special IBM" version Priam ESDI drive that I had been using in a model 80 and used the drive with a WD-1007 controller in another machine. When I returned the drive to the IBM I could no longer get the IBM set-up program to believe the drive was usable. When I had formatted the drive on the '386 clone I over-wrote the CE track and wiped out the magic data that makes the drive recognizable to the set-up program. Unless you have a special program that writes the magic incantation to the CE track there isn't any way to FDISK the drive in a PS/2. Generic bare drives are out. It wouldn't surprise me at all if Ken Olsen had the same idea as IBM. Needless to say, the yucky 70 meg IBM drive went back into the PS/2 and the Priam drive went back to its new home in the ISA bus clone machine. It was better off that way any way. Bill -- Bill Mayhew NEOUCOM Computer Services Department Rootstown, OH 44272-9995 USA phone: 216-325-2511 wtm@uhura.neoucom.edu ....!uunet!aablue!neoucom!wtm via internet: (140.220.001.001)