thad@btr.btr.com (06/17/91)
Several items for your reading pleasure! In article <1991Jun16.171812.22946@sugar.hackercorp.com> posted to newsgroup comp.sys.amiga.advocacy by peter@sugar.hackercorp.com (Peter da Silva), he writes about the 3B1 being more responsive than a Sparc-1 per: | [...] | Hundreds of Macs, all of which die horribly as soon as I start doing what | I consider normal things on them. X-windows, with many of the same design | flaws as the Mac, and which take a 17 MIPS CPU to get the same responsiveness | as my 0.7 MIPS Amiga 1000. Microsoft Windows, which is gorgeous but an | excersize in frustration. | | Oh, and the original Xerox Star and 1100 running Smalltalk and Interlisp-D. | As well as any number of older UNIX windowing systems that, simply because | they had to run in small systems, were conservative of resources. Really, | the 68010-based 3b1 was more responsive under WM or MGR than a sparc-1 | under X. | | You can cover up poor design by throwing MIPS at it, or adapt to it so it | doesn't hurt you too much, but it doesn't go away. In <3079@public.BTR.COM> posted to the newsgroup comp.sys.amiga.hardware by thad@public.BTR.COM (Thaddeus P. Floryan) he/me writes/wrote (concerning fan cooling strategies): [...] A fan blowing directly onto the power supply and/or other heat-generating parts will continue to cool them, contrasted to a cooling system designed to evacuate hot air from an enclosure. A recent response from someone at Commodore clearly stated the A3000 *will* overheat if operated with its cover removed. [...] I still maintain that a filtered positive-pressure computer cooling system is "better" than a non-filtered volumetric-evacuation system (as in the Amiga and most consumer systems), especially when the possibility exists (as with the Amiga) for overheating (when operated with the cover removed). Oh, sheesh, this opens up the door to a LOT of humor possibilties for cooling technique acronyms! :-) To wit: ASS = Air Suck System BIT = Blow It Through PIT = Pull It Through SIO = Suck It Out BII = Blow It In FITBIT = Filter It Totally, Blow It Through BARF = Blow Air Reasonably Fast FART = Forwarding Air Rapidly Through BITBLT = Blow It Through, But Leave Parts (on the board :-) etc. Seriously, I'm the guy who put IC cooling fins on my C64's IC chips seven years ago (that computer ran HOT), so I really don't want to make light of the need for proper cooling. I started this "thread" because I feel the issue of cooling (and cleanliness) has NOT been properly addressed by most manufacturers (along with the issue of "quiet" computers.) As just one example (which some of you have seen), I converted one of my AT&T 3B1 systems to a tower configuration earlier this year and showed it at the Silicon Valley AT&T UNIX Users' Group meeting; the overwhelming comment from everyone was "Is it on?" because I applied my theory of cooling to that system and changed the location of the fan ... the system actually runs BELOW ambient (measured using a YSI 43TC multiple thermocouple temperature instrument output to a Gould plotter) and it's almost totally SILENT except for the whirring of the hard drive ... I'm using the EXACT same fan that was in the stock 3B1. So it CAN be done, with filtered air, and a clean system as a (side) benefit. In article <3081@public.BTR.COM> posted to comp.unix.questions by thad@public.BTR.COM (Thaddeus P. Floryan) he/me writes/wrote: Emmet Gray's ``PCOMM'' (version 1.2*) seems to be the perfect answer to your needs; it should be at any archive site. His home site for those who wish to ftp is ``cerl.cecer.army.mil'' [IP 129.229.1.101]. In operation, PCOMM resembles the popular ProComm Plus found on MS-DOS boxes, its commands are all menu driven, and the file transfer menus are invoked and selected using the arrow keys on your keyboard. The systems on which I have successfully compiled and used PCOMM include: 3B1 (aka UNIXPC and PC7300), AT&T SVR 3.51 thru 3.51m [68010], A/UX 2.* on a Mac [68020], CTIX 6.2* on a Convergent Technologies MightyFrame [68020], and Sun 3/60, both SunOS 4.0.3 and 4.1.1 [68020] Thad Floryan [ thad@btr.com (OR) {decwrl, mips, fernwood}!btr!thad ]
rmfowler@texrex.uucp (Rex Fowler) (06/18/91)
In article <3083@public.BTR.COM> thad@btr.btr.com writes: >Several items for your reading pleasure! > >In <3079@public.BTR.COM> posted to the newsgroup comp.sys.amiga.hardware by >thad@public.BTR.COM (Thaddeus P. Floryan) he/me writes/wrote (concerning fan >cooling strategies): > [....] >Oh, sheesh, this opens up the door to a LOT of humor possibilties for cooling >technique acronyms! :-) To wit: > > ASS = Air Suck System > BIT = Blow It Through > PIT = Pull It Through > SIO = Suck It Out > BII = Blow It In > FITBIT = Filter It Totally, Blow It Through > BARF = Blow Air Reasonably Fast > FART = Forwarding Air Rapidly Through > BITBLT = Blow It Through, But Leave Parts (on the board :-) > etc. > Hey Thad, what about FARTASS? Having two fans; one blowing in, one blowing out? There has been discussion in the past about fan usage and it seemed to me that the 'FARTASS' method might be the best way to keep air moving through the computer. The only problem I see is that maybe the air blowing in exits through the holes in the back(front)-plane before being sucked out by the other fan. > >Thad Floryan [ thad@btr.com (OR) {decwrl, mips, fernwood}!btr!thad ] -- Rex Fowler <rmfowler@texrex.cirr.com> UUCP: egsner!texrex!rmfowler