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From: sam@lanl.ARPA (Sam A Matthews)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Mainframes vs micros
Message-ID: <10781@lanl.ARPA>
Date: Mon, 22-Dec-86 19:06:56 EST
Article-I.D.: lanl.10781
Posted: Mon Dec 22 19:06:56 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 23-Dec-86 00:06:44 EST
References: <653@imsvax.UUCP> <1397@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu>
Reply-To: sam@a.UUCP (Sam A Matthews)
Organization: Los Alamos National Laboratory
Lines: 29

[]

To say who needs a mainframe when you can have a micro is like saying
who needs a hammer now that we have a screw driver. :) The truth of the
matter is both are tools and both do thier jobs very well. I have a PC 
on my desk that I use quite effectively. I also have a comm line that 
puts at my immediate disposal 17 vaxen minis and remote access that can get 
me to many of the 200+ vaxen (!) here at the lab. There are also 2 or 3 cray 
X-MP/48s, 1 cray X-MP/24, 4 cray-1s, 2 CDC 7600s, 5 CDC cybers, we also 
have 4 IBM mainframes (2-4241, 3083, and a 4381) just for a front end to 
mass storage!

I would like to see someone try to get 1000+ users to access one database
using a PC network or manage a multi-gigabyte database, or 2 or 3.  
Come on... It will not happen in our lifetimes. 

Technology is not just improving in the PC world either. Mainframe technology
is also improving, advancing and growing in leaps and bounds. By the time
we all have crays on our desks, I can just imagine what the crays will be
doing! :)

I guess the point of this is that tools are here for us to use, we should use 
the one that best does the job. I wouldn't use the cray for a spreadsheet any 
more than I would do fluid dynamics simulations on my PC.


Sam Matthews			       /\|/\     "We put a star
sam@lanl.ARPA			     --> * <--      in a box."
(ihnp4 or cmcl2)!lanl!sam	       \/|\/