Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utcsrgv.UUCP Path: utzoo!utcsrgv!perelgut From: perelgut@utcsrgv.UUCP (Stephen Perelgut) Newsgroups: net.micro,net.research,net.cse Subject: Re: First Summary of PC's in Education Survey Message-ID: <3475@utcsrgv.UUCP> Date: Wed, 7-Mar-84 21:32:31 EST Article-I.D.: utcsrgv.3475 Posted: Wed Mar 7 21:32:31 1984 Date-Received: Wed, 7-Mar-84 22:17:17 EST References: <3604@utzoo.UUCP>, <3466@utcsrgv.UUCP>, <3611@utzoo.UUCP> Organization: CSRG, University of Toronto Lines: 43 . I don't want too many people to think I am a promoter of outdated technology or something. So let me say a few more things in my own defence. 1) I advocate 8088 based technology because it is there. The reason I don't advocate MS-BASIC is that we can do better now. Following Henry's argument, I would design my teaching environment based on a 16032 with all 7 M's. However: it isn't available in any quantity it isn't tested (and no university is going to buy a pig in a poke no matter how pretty it is.) it would cost both arms, one leg, and the other leg up to the second joint 2) I advocate IBM PC's because they are here, they have upper management support, and we have one to play with NOW. Not next week or next year or whenever. 3) I realize that 16-bits isn't enough to write the worlds largest programs, but I seriously doubt any student will suffer from the "limitation" in a first computer course. 4) "Animated algorithms" may be the wave of the future, but there is no support here, now. Would anyone recommend that we wait until the future is here? I would rather do something than sit and wait for something better. There is always something better on the horizon. After the 68000's are the 16000's. And then the next generations. Etc. I don't wanna wait. I want to start conversion now. 5) The U. of T. is grossly underfunded. When there is a commitment to pursue some project, turning it down is suicide. If we look too far into the future, we will miss the present boat. In spite of all that, I sympathize with Mark Mendell (who got stuck with the 8086 coder when I became too busy. Just goes to show you what happens when you're the best, and Mark is! So he got stuck!) I would love to use 68000's, but I don't have one, let alone the 15-20 we need. Anyone wanna give a gift to a worthy university. We even have means for giving out U.S. tax certificates. And we implement top-quality compilers in under a man-year. (3 months for a production Turing compiler developed by 3 people, about 2 man-months for Turing/68000 when we go that route.) And Turing is complete, verifiable, and FAST (compile-time AND run-time.) -- Stephen Perelgut Computer Systems Research Group University of Toronto Usenet: {linus, ihnp4, allegra, decvax, floyd}!utcsrgv!perelgut CSNET: perelgut@Toronto