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From: news@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu (Usenet netnews)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Many Questions/ some answers
Message-ID: <1383@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu>
Date: Fri, 19-Dec-86 16:16:07 EST
Article-I.D.: cit-vax.1383
Posted: Fri Dec 19 16:16:07 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 20-Dec-86 02:36:15 EST
References: <650@imsvax.UUCP> <1373@cit-vax.Caltech.Edu> <750@uwmacc.UUCP>
Reply-To: tim@tomcat.UUCP (Tim Kay)
Organization: California Institute of Technology
Lines: 48

Organization : California Institute of Technology
Keywords: 
From: tim@tomcat.Caltech.Edu (Tim Kay)
Path: tomcat!tim

In article <750@uwmacc.UUCP> edwards@unix.macc.wisc.edu.UUCP (mark edwards) writes:
>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

If all you need to do is non-floating point calculations, an 80386 might
be about as fast as a 780.  However, the throughput of a 780 is much
higher.  I don't know the particular numbers for a 386, but take a
68020/68881 like a Sun III/160.  I run non-floating point, and it runs
about 2 times a 780.  If I run floating point, it runs about 1/11th
the speed of a 780.  Also, a Sun can't do disk i/o very fast.

>   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.

I am not sure I understand your "( resource = 1 pc )" comment.  If
it means that all 30 people are using 1 PC, then I'll ask you to
compare your PC to a 780 running in single-user mode.  You'll find
that it doesn't bog down and it runs much faster at the same time.
On the other hand, if you mean that you have a PC per person, I
would agree that 30 PC's is more computing power than a 780.

>   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.

My posting was in response to another comment that PC's are cutting
in on IBM's mainframe market, and I wanted to suggest that this
simply isn't so.  I'd like to hear other points of view regarding
this assertion.

I like PC's, and I am typing this on one now.

Timothy L. Kay				tim@csvax.caltech.edu
Department of Computer Science
Caltech, 256-80
Pasadena, CA  91125