Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucsd!brian From: brian@ucsd.Edu (Brian Kantor) Newsgroups: comp.sys.att Subject: Re: "AT&T to resell Pyramid computers" (for real) Message-ID: <10033@ucsd.Edu> Date: 28 Sep 89 00:15:28 GMT References: <1185@vsi.COM> <1123@aurora.AthabascaU.CA> <887@occrsh.ATT.COM> Reply-To: brian@ucsd.edu (Brian Kantor) Distribution: comp Organization: The Avant-Garde of the Now, Ltd. Lines: 33 Good Grief! If the 3B4000 requires as much or more tuning as that to serve as a general purpose computer, I might as well buy an IBM 370 and heat the building with it as well. Perhaps in an environment where each terminal/user is going to do precisely ONE kind of application all the time every day, you could claim that a tuned machine is going to support lots of users. But in a university environment where the mix of tasks changes so wildly that no one can predict what will be running next, there is NO WAY to tune a machine to optimize performance of one kind of task without sacrificing some generality and the performance of all other kinds of tasks. What you need is raw frothing power. Or honest marketing that will tell me that my 42Q1000 isn't going to really be powerful enough to handle more than 8 to 10 users when 5 of them are using vi, three are running troff, and two are compiling modula programs. There's a big difference between a computer that can run the accounting department of a company and one that can support computer science students developing programs, starting with the way the thing handles job mixes and ending with the utilities provided. Computer manufacturers have to decide which market they're aiming for. More importantly, they have to tell their customers which environment their computers are optimized for and what its performance in that and other environments is going to be. Until that happens, you're going to have large hunks of iron that get returned to the vendor leaving lots and lots of ill-will behind them. Diogenes, where is your lamp? - Brian