Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.1 6/24/83; site sdcsla.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxl!ihnp4!drutx!houxe!hogpc!houti!ariel!vax135!cornell!uw-beaver!tektronix!hplabs!sdcrdcf!sdcsvax!sdcsla!west From: west@sdcsla.UUCP Newsgroups: net.unix Subject: Re: Personal Computers running UNIX - (nf) Message-ID: <621@sdcsla.UUCP> Date: Thu, 9-Aug-84 00:08:47 EDT Article-I.D.: sdcsla.621 Posted: Thu Aug 9 00:08:47 1984 Date-Received: Sun, 29-Jul-84 00:24:15 EDT References: <1754@sri-arpa.UUCP> <18500016@smu.UUCP> Organization: UC San Diego: Institute for Cognitive Science Lines: 47 In response to Perry Smith [of "smu", whatever that may be]: > We have four suns holding the floor down here at smu. I find them > to be less than usefull. Any high performance computer that does > screen scrolling in software is stupid. That is just the beginning > of the problems with the suns. Their philosophy seems to be > "Fix it with software" which is o.k. unless you want to get finish > today instead of next week. I cast one definate NO vote for the suns. > (These are sun 2's with the new software and all. Before the "upgrade" > they were absured.) Really? Sun-2's less than useful? We have several here in the Cognitive Science Lab, and I don't think there is anyone who finds them less than useful. Windows are generally well-done and quick, and the response is usually fine. We use them for software development, [real-time] typing tests, word processing & text formatting, message delivery, modelling (and associated interactive graphics), heating up the room and so on.... Of course, you need 2 Megs or more of "core", and 16 Megs of swap space (which is not well utilized), but once you have that, and hopefully an Ethernet, I really can't imagine why you exhibit such disdain for Suns. Of course they fix some things with software -- do you really expect companies to replace an entire board (in hundreds of installations) when some minor bug crops up? And what difference does it generally make to you how the bug is fixed? Similarly, how someone does their scrolling really doesn't matter nearly as much as how well it is done. Sun could have done better on this, and I expect them to in a future release, but it really doesn't bother me. I don't tend to spend much time trying to read and scroll at the same time on terminals which do this quite nicely (though not many do at 9600 baud). It would be useful for readers of such comparisons if you would specify the use to which you put your machine(s), what you are comparing them to [an ideal? a comparably-priced machine?], and what in particular you find disappointing. Simply stating that a computer is less than useful merely indicates that you haven't figured out how to use it. -- Larry West, UC San Diego, Institute for Cognitive Science -- decvax!ittvax!dcdwest!sdcsvax!sdcsla!west -- ucbvax!sdcsvax!sdcsla!west -- west@NPRDC {{ NOT:[aarg!] }}