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From: mat@amdahl.UUCP (Mike Taylor)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Mainframes vs micros
Message-ID: <4796@amdahl.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 22-Dec-86 12:07:57 EST
Article-I.D.: amdahl.4796
Posted: Mon Dec 22 12:07:57 1986
Date-Received: Mon, 22-Dec-86 22:46:52 EST
References: <653@imsvax.UUCP>
Organization: Amdahl Corp, Sunnyvale CA
Lines: 56

In article <653@imsvax.UUCP>, ted@imsvax.UUCP (Ted Holden) writes:
> >Next, I can't see how PCs are competing with minis and mainframes.

I can't either.  There is no evidence that PCs have cut into or eroded
mainframe capacity demand in any way, and some evidence that they have
increased it.

> 
> The comparison is between a mainframe and a system of micros.
> I have never seen anyone smile while using a mainframe the way
> they do using ATs.

Maybe the problem here is comparing a 10-year-old VAX-11/780 with a
modern micro, which isn't fair.  I've certainly seen people smile when
a several thousand line compile or build is done in seconds.  Our
current top-end product is about 60 times the capacity of a VAX-11/780
in a Unix (tm AT&T) environment.  If your productivity is in any way
related to turnaround or response on non-trivial computing tasks, then
it's a better deal.  In addition, many large tasks and databases simply
aren't feasible on micros or systems of micros.  The majority of
mainframe computing is not, and never has been, small program development,
spreadsheets, or document preparation.  These are tasks for which PCs
may indeed be well-suited.

> WordPerfect can scroll through a 50 or 100  page document in seconds;
> I don't know of any mainframe product which can.
> 
> Turbo Pascal can compile 2000 line programs in 10 seconds or so on a 6mh AT; 
> again, I don't know of any mainframe compiler which can do this.
> And the best programming being done these days is for the mass market machines
> where the biggest payoff is, not for mainframes.  
> 

Clearly, your knowledge of mainframes is limited.  However, you raise an
interesting point.  Actually, the biggest software payoff by far is in
mainframes - the problem is that IBM dominates the market.  It makes
at least $2 billion a year from mainframe software - take that, Lotus.
IBMs market clout has made it hard for others, specifically by use of
a proprietary, closed operating system (MVS).  But you are right - there
is more clever programming by far being done for micros than for
mainframes.  But that's an opportunity!

> Likewise, hardware breakthroughs are now hitting the DOS market first and only
> then possibly filtering down to the mainframe market.

You couldn't be more wrong on this one.  Virtually all the ideas you see
in micros were originally developed for mainframes - often many years ago.
Certainly they've been repackaged for the micro - the value of a 1.2 GB
hard disk on a PC is questionable - but you saw them here first.  I would
say that the only major technology that is more or less exclusively due to
the micro is the bit-mapped display idea.  Gee, pretty soon PCs will
even have virtual memory and memory protection!
-- 
Mike Taylor                        ...!{ihnp4,hplabs,amd,sun}!amdahl!mat

[ This may not reflect my opinion, let alone anyone else's.  ]