From: rsrodger@wam.umd.edu (Yamanari)
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy
Subject: Re: Here's some Advocacy for you.
Date: 14 Dec 92 22:00:19 GMT
Organization: University of Maryland, College Park

In article <Bz9MJt.3zw@news.iastate.edu> jws@iastate.edu (James William Shoemaker) writes:
>>        Yeah, great.  That's what I call *real* efficient programming.
>>        You must be kidding.  4 megs for a shell and an OS?  What a joke.
>	I agree, 6 Megs for a shell and an OS? What a joke. (Based on Msoft's
>claim of 8Meg==2 left over for Apps)

	(That includes networking)

	Even so, I do agree.  I think *both* of them are pigs.  
	Just because NT is a slightly bigger pig, does that make
	OS/2 less obese?  NT weighs in at 600 pounds, OS/2 at
	400--is there really any difference there?  


>	OK, How do you explain that NT will unseat UNIX on these same platforms


	Who said NT would unseat UNIX?  MS, in that regard, is out of their
	gourd.  OTOH, not all MIPS, Alpha and Clipper machines will
	necessarily be UNIX machines--what's the 486 running in lots of
	1000, $400?  Do you have any idea what the new SPARC from 
	TI runs in similiar quantities?  How about the PA RISC?  
	The Alpha?  The only thing preventing very fast, very cheap 
	power in the PC world right now is the need to have applications
	to run on the platform--the problem that killed any number of
	technically superior PC's (NeXT [Cube--not '030], Amiga, Acorn 
	[to a limited extent], etc).  If applications weren't important,
	we wouldn't be using Intel based PC's.  The R4400 is 
	much better in terms of bang-for-the-buck, and NT licenses
	these platforms by virtue of delivering, along with the 
	NT kernel, a slew of applications.

	I don't think it takes a great stretch of the imagination
	to imagine a point--in the near future--where you can purchase
	a nice R4400 based PC (single processor, 16 megs of ram, video,
	etc) for about the same price as a high-end brand-name PC
	clone--and dropping from there.  NT has been demoed on MIPS.

	If anything, this *alone* gives NT and OS/2MACH a good reason
	for existance.  How much do you think the pentium is going to 
	run when released?  >$1000, chances are (at first).  

	We've been arguing SMP for awhile now, but I think that all
	sides of that argument can agree that next to the possibility
	of these very fast chips finally becoming available to the
	end user (end users do not run UNIX, period) is more important,
	in the short term, than SMP.  


	People are always babbling about how cheap the Intel-based
	PC world is (there are budget 486 boxes for <$1000 selling 
	local, now--three months ago these were SX systems), but what
	they don't realize is that it's scale and competition--almost
	0 profit motherboards and pricing as low as they can pull it.  
	Used to be you could put a system together cheaper than you
	could buy, but these days I wonder if that's true anymore--
	a friend picked up a 486 motherboard for ~$300 at a swap
	meet the other day, but that's pretty rare these days.  

	<Wish someone would do *something* about monitor prices, which
	are either staying stable, or going up (better monitor for new
	standard resolution)>


>	Show me the 32-bit motherboard that can take RAM 24-bits wide.  Almost
>all 386 and higher motherboards must be filles 4-SIMMs at a time.


	I retract the statement, but I submit that it's rather pointless--
	machines selling now, that will run NT--it's foolish to purchase
	with less than 16 megs if you're going to choose OS/2 *or* 
	NT--the difference in system price is ~$300.  


-- 
	"If you can't eat sand, why the hell are you living in a desert?"


	Nuclear redevelopment for a better world!
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.advocacy