From: s047@SAND.SICS.BU.OZ.AU (Jeremy Lee)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.acorn
Subject: Re: Personal Computer World
Date: 9 Apr 92 03:34:21 GMT
Article-I.D.: sand.9204081234.AA20453

In article <9204071540.AA00344@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU> you write:
>In <1992Apr7.124009.10032@doc.ic.ac.uk> Ian Palmer writes:
>
>>The IBM PC's have always relied upon MS-DOS up until fairly recently.
>>An operating system which can handle upto 640k. Acorn dropped their
>>origional BBC operating system with the release of RiscOS 2 (although
>
>>It is my opinion that it is the PC market that is in for a bumpy ride
>>ahead, more so than the Acorn market as Acorn have had a good platform
>>for many years now (since the release of the A305) whereas the IBM
>>PC's platform is still (it's very sad to say :-) ) the 8086 and when
>>you consider that now people are still using the A305 with a much
>>greater specification than when released, look at the poor 8086 user
>>with his 640k and MS-DOS.
>   IBM PC's have _never_ been 8086 based ....
>The average PC spec is now 80386SX with 4MB,a VGA monitor and a 60MB
>disk. Where have you been the last 3 years ???
>
>>(a bit like your average business man who knows nothing about
>>computers).
>  Nor would it seem, does your average student .... :-)
>
>Greg Nicholls ... nicho@vnet.ibm.com or nicho@cix.compulink.co.uk

	I beg to differ. I am a resident Student at what is arguably
Australia's most technologically litterate university. By this I mean
that every lawyer, business person, humanities students, is taught WP,
spreadsheets, databases as a compulsory core subject, and is required to
have "Unrestriced access to a computer". Nobody typewrites or handwrites
assignments here. over 80% of the students have their own personal
computers, and I end up fixing a fair few of them.
	The average PC spec is NOWHERE NEAR 80386sx with 4MB etc. as
above. I know of two or three people with the spec you describe.
	The computers here have mostly been bought when students stated
here, so almost all of the equipment is under 3 years old. The
"Standard" around here is for everyone to have MS Windows, and that
means 2MB of RAM, which all but an unfortunate few have. Processing power
is neatly divided between 286 and 386sx (with a few genuine '386's, and
one known '486) None of these go above 30MHz. Most people have VGA. Some
have less than this, which means 1MB and CGA.
	Hard disk space is most likely 40MB, but there are a lot of
people (30%) with 20MB. On a 20MB drive, you can fit DOS, windows, Word
for windows, and a few documents. No kidding. 40MB is more usefull but
even non-technical friends have quickly filled them up with just a few
major pieces of software (Excel, Word 5, etc.) and a game or two.
	No-one would even consider going to OS/2 (8meg? Ha ha!). Unless
Windows NT fits into 2MB, then I can't see that being too popular around
here either.
	People hate windows. It's slow, cumbersome, and sometimes is
insanely complicated. It does strange things for no reason. It never has
enough memory do do things. The font system never works. Files get lost
easily and are never found again. Virii are rife. People can barely run
current application software. They are not going to be going to any
new mega-systems like Windows NT. It's difficult to navigate the
options,which are called insane names, and things like graphics are
almost impossible to get correct. Theings never look on screen the way
thay ar going to appear.
	On the Mac side, it's no better. 2MB is suddenly not enough with
system 7. 4MB is becoming the new standard, and users can't affort it.
The Mac however, is great for Wordprocessing, and students love them to
do assignments with the odd graph, but not much beyond that. Word 5 is
horrendously slow, and so is the entire of System 7. (Not to mention
large). All the usefull features like file sharing costs huge amounts
of memory to run. The average is a current Mac classic. The highest
powered machine is a Mac LC with 4MB.
	All macintoshes get used for is document creation. They break if
you try to stretch them any further. Every assignemnt and report you see
around the Uni looks exactly the same. The new font system is slow
and nasty. It does outline fonts on the fly too, and it's like watching
an Arc with a 16K font cache which is also calculating 6-7 mandelbrot
sets in the background. Even with the superior resolution of the Mac
screen, it still looks horrible when you scale it down to <6 points.
	then there is me, with my A310, 1MB, PAL screen, and you can see
wherever I go. I have a distinctive style that people are beginning to
recognise. (I do a lot of promo work for the Student Council.) I do more
than the entire of Student Residence combined in the way of Quality
publications. And I don't even have !Impression. 

***********************************************************************
*    . Jeremy Lee s047@sand.sics.bu.oz.au    Student of Everything    *
*   /|            "Where the naked spotless intelect is without       *
*  /_|              center or circumference. Look to the light,       *
* /  |rchimedes      Leland, look to the light" - Dale Cooper         *
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