Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!rutgers!clyde!cbatt!cwruecmp!hal!ncoast!tdi2!brandon From: brandon@tdi2.UUCP (Brandon Allbery) Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc Subject: Re: mainframe vs Micro Message-ID: <133@tdi2.UUCP> Date: Sun, 11-Jan-87 23:03:40 EST Article-I.D.: tdi2.133 Posted: Sun Jan 11 23:03:40 1987 Date-Received: Tue, 13-Jan-87 01:17:06 EST References: <658@imsvax.UUCP> Reply-To: brandon@tdi2.UUCP (Brandon Allbery) Followup-To: comp.sys.ibm.pc Organization: Tridelta Industries, Inc., Mentor, OH Lines: 102 Quoted from <658@imsvax.UUCP> ["Re: Mainframe vs Micro"], by ted@imsvax.UUCP (Ted Holden)... +--------------- | Tim Kay (Caltech) writes: | >In article <657@imsvax.UUCP> ted@imsvax.UUCP (Ted Holden) writes: | >>There are several points to consider concerning the mainframe/micro question | >>as it relates to databases. The 32 meg limit doesn't apply to Novell Netware. | | >You are totally in the wrong ball park. PCs aren't going to encroach on | >mainfames just because the 32M limit was broken. A _typical_ drive that | >IBM sells (3380) has about 600 Mbytes on it. A _typical_ machine they sell | >will have anywhere from 10 to 500 of these drives on it. A PC can handle | >only two drives. One of the main concerns in designing the XA architecture | >at IBM was that installations were running out of address space for numbering | >devices (disks, tape drives, terminals, CTCAs, etc.). The old 370 | >architecture can handle 4,096 devices! The new XA architecture can handle | >significantly more. | | I'm not the one who's in the wrong ballpark. The comparison between individual | PCs and individual mainframes is no more meaningful than that between an | individual army ant and one of the creatures which ARMIES of such small | army ants EAT. What is important is the servers reach a certain level of | power and sophistication, which they have, and the state of the control soft- | ware for the army (e.g. Novell's Netware). These are good enough for such | PC armies to eat VAX class machines today and I can't believe they won't be | eating IBM mainframes in another year or two. +--------------- Show me a *network* on a PC whose data transfer rate is as fast as our ancient 14" Fujitsu drives (B-something-or-other, not Eagles), much less the current breed of fast hard disks. I would hesitate to use networked PCs for our database application -- and I am currently considering machines to replace our Plexus P/60 for that, as it isn't capable of handling 18 users running what is currently two applications, one in Unify and one in RM/COBOL. (I am in the midst of evaluating 4GLs to remedy this; looks like Progress will be the one we use. However, my speed tests don't show too much of an improvement from our current system to any of the 4GLs I have tested.) Any suggestions? +--------------- | >Typically, a single machine configured as above is not adequate, so IBM | >offers (and has offered for about a thousand years now) the ability to | >network these large machines. There are installations that have dozens | >of the machines (of the size I just mentioned) networked together. | | And cost many times what equivalent compute power in the form of PCs would. | As long as such systems could do things which small computers physically | couldn't do, such costs could have been justified. The day when all such bets | are off is rapidly approaching. +--------------- Nevertheless, the speed issue remains. You might network together 500 PCs to make the user-equivalent of an Amdahl, but network accesses will make it a lot slower than the Amdahl... +--------------- | >The present discussion started when a claim was put forward that PCs are cutting | >into IBM's mainframe market. DEC offers no machine that is anywhere near the | >power of IBM's mainframes. IBM can _routinely_ put hundreds of terminals | >on a single machine, and it will perform well. ...... | | Assuming all but a few of these terminals are turned off. At every mainframe | installation I've ever worked at or with, there was money to be made by some | one selling IBM or Univac PUNCHING BAGS, just ordinary 70 lb heavy bags with | "IBM" or "UNIVAC" or maybe "CDC" written on them. The people would have lined | up. I mean, if any of these statements about mainframes serving 200 or 700 | users at minimal (one guy quoted .05 for a CDC) load were true, PCs would | never have seen the light of day. Get serious. +--------------- Even as slow as it was, I preferred using CSU's IBM 370 to using a PC. And networked PCs I used at the same time made the bogged-down 43xx look fast by comparison. Get serious. +--------------- | >I will rephrase a statement that I made earlier. Most people have absolutely | >no idea what the bulk of the computing power in this country is used for. | | I've been involved with porting mainframe applications to small computers | for some time now, mostly because people finally couldn't stand dealing | with the mainframes. Aside from the obvious database kinds of things, | these have included large Fortran programs, including the Census X-11 | time series routine and a couple of risk-analysis types of programs from | Social Security in Baltimore, all of which ran way the hell faster on | generic 68000 machines than they ever did on these organizations' Univac | mainframes. Such applications are probably pretty typical of how the | "bulk of the computing power in this country" is used. +--------------- No doubt. And how many other things were running on the mainframe, as opposed to how many other things were running on the 68000? Many 68020 machines run slower than 68000 machines: the 68020s sold by Plexus have 80 user limits, whereas the 68000s (until recently) were limited to 40 users. Is this a reason to tout 68000s as faster than 68020s? ++Brandon -- ``for is he not of the Children of Luthien? Never shall that line fail, though the years may lengthen beyond count.'' --J. R. R. Tolkien Brandon S. Allbery UUCP: cbatt!cwruecmp!ncoast!tdi2!brandon Tridelta Industries, Inc. CSNET: ncoast!allbery@Case 7350 Corporate Blvd. INTERNET: ncoast!allbery%Case.CSNET@relay.CS.NET Mentor, Ohio 44060 PHONE: +1 216 255 1080 (home) +1 216 974 9210