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From: edwards@uwmacc.UUCP (mark edwards)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Many Questions/ some answers
Message-ID: <750@uwmacc.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 19-Dec-86 09:11:12 EST
Article-I.D.: uwmacc.750
Posted: Fri Dec 19 09:11:12 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 20-Dec-86 00:22:39 EST
References: <650@imsvax.UUCP> <1373@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu>
Reply-To: edwards@unix.macc.wisc.edu.UUCP (mark edwards)
Organization: UW-Madison Academic Computer Center
Lines: 29

In article <1373@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu> tim@tomcat.caltech.edu (Tim Kay) writes:
>Next, I can't see how PCs are competing with minis and mainframes.  An
>80[23]86 at 8 or even 16Mhz still doesn't pack a fraction of the
>computing power of a Vax 11/780.  And, for the work I do, a Vax is
>a small machine.  A 3090/400 is roughly 50 times as powerful.
>
   From what I heard the 386 has the CPU power of a VAX 780, of course
   I could have heard wrong, but even so, I can buy lots of 386's and
   even more 286's for the price of a VAX 780 and then what about the
   maintenance. Given that Universities get big discounts on all the
   DEC equipment it still costs lots of money for maintenance. I can
   afford to buy an entire replacement 286 a couple times over for the
   maintenance one pays for the Vax 780. 

   The nice thing about PC's is that when we have 30 people using all
   our PC resources ( resource = 1 pc ) the pc doesn't bog down. This
   is not true for the VAX, if 30 people were using a VAX 780, well
   I usually log off then I can almost do the work by hand better.


   You may need your own powerful machine for your purposes, but 
   most people do not and a PC on their desk is more than enough
   computing power, and very cheap computing power at that.

   mark
-- 
    edwards@unix.macc.wisc.edu
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