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From: rotheroe@convexs.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Mainframes vs micros
Message-ID: <119200003@convexs>
Date: Tue, 30-Dec-86 09:20:00 EST
Article-I.D.: convexs.119200003
Posted: Tue Dec 30 09:20:00 1986
Date-Received: Thu, 1-Jan-87 00:35:53 EST
References: <653@imsvax.UUCP>
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Nf-From: convexs.UUCP!rotheroe    Dec 30 08:20:00 1986


> 	It appears that the new 32-bit microcomputers will have the
> CPU power of many smaller mainframes.  The weakest link will be 
> I/O.  The disk access is much too slow for any moderate number of
> users.  

Although minisuper, main supermini, and minis will always be with us
(and at any given time the current models of them will be much more
powerful than the current micro's), one has to wonder how something
like a 68030 running at (guessing) 25MHz with (say) 128MByte memory
would compare.  If almost everything can fit in memory at a time, I/O
speed is less of a worry.  Such a micro could easily serve a dozen
(or more) users, each running a (relatively) large job, and almost
never have to go to disk.  We will have to wait and see what happens,
and until that time I'll stick to minisupercomputers.

Dave Rotheroe         {allegra, ihnp4, uiucdcs, ctvax}!convex!rotheroe

"Good afternoon, gentlemen.  I am a HAL 9000 computer.  I became operational
at the Hal plant in Urbana, Illinois, on the twelfth of January, 1992."

                      2001 & 2010 (book only for 2010)