Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!ginosko!uunet!cs.dal.ca!lane From: lane@cs.dal.ca (John Wright/Dr. Pat Lane) Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc Subject: Is the XT dead? Message-ID: <1989Sep27.104957.24581@cs.dal.ca> Date: 27 Sep 89 10:49:57 GMT Organization: Math, Stats & CS, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada Lines: 50 Here is a question that's been sparking debate in the office here. I'll toss it out to the net. Are 8086/8088-based machines obsolete? Nearly so? How long have they got? I don't see many ads for or hear much about XT's in the magasines lately. Many people are saying that since XT's can't run OS/2 or certain DOS programs today, that soon they won't be able to run most new software and as such represent a bad investment at any price. Others say that's just industry hype and a machine that does what you want today will still be able to do so as long as it holds together... "and who needs OS/2 anyway". Others say it doesn't matter what you buy, its going to be obsolete before you get it out of the box...well, sooner than you think, anyway. But that doesn't really help you decide what to buy now. Certainly XTs are cheap. An XT is half the price of a 286 which is half the price of a 386 (roughly of course). One dealer told me that they don't like selling XTs anymore because there's no profit in them. I guess for us the turning point would be when the latest release of WordPerfect doesnt run on an XT. Of course we're already there with Lotus 123 rel 3. Suppose you have relatively light duty tasks that, today, would be served adequately by XTs and don't anticipate your basic tasks changing a great deal, and you need several such machines, what do you buy if you want to invest wisely? Where's the "smart" money going! Ancillary question: How far behind the 8086 is the 80286? People have been calling it a brain-damaged dead-end since the day it was released. There is certainly software around that runs on 386's but not 286's. Note: I'm trying to remain neutral in asking this question so don't flame me for being on one side or the other. -- John Wright ////////////////// Phone: 902-424-3805 or 902-424-6527 Post: c/o Dr Pat Lane, Biology Dept, Dalhousie U, Halifax N.S., CANADA B3H-4H8 Cdn/Eannet:lane@cs.dal.cdn Uucp:lane@dalcs.uucp or {uunet watmath}!dalcs!lane Arpa:lane%dalcs.uucp@uunet.uu.net Internet:lane@cs.dal.ca -- John Wright ////////////////// Phone: 902-424-3805 or 902-424-6527 Post: c/o Dr Pat Lane, Biology Dept, Dalhousie U, Halifax N.S., CANADA B3H-4H8 Cdn/Eannet:lane@cs.dal.cdn Uucp:lane@dalcs.uucp or {uunet watmath}!dalcs!lane Arpa:lane%dalcs.uucp@uunet.uu.net Internet:lane@cs.dal.ca