From: shin-jungshik@CS.YALE.EDU (Jungshik Shin)
Subject: Re: Korea
Organization: Yale University
Date: Sun, 27 Sep 1992 05:47:57 GMT

In article <1992Sep26.113442.23330@monu6.cc.monash.edu.au> int177c@aurora.cc.monash.edu.au (Jae Won) writes:
>In article <1992Sep25.183557.12254@news.yale.edu> shin-jungshik@CS.YALE.EDU (Jungshik Shin) writes:
>>In article <1992Sep24.202508.9505@uceng.UC.EDU> ycho@uceng.UC.EDU (Young Cho) writes:
>>>
>>>I think that 386 is the most popular one right now in Korea.
>>  386 is somewhat out-of date in Korea. 486 is the most popular among Koreans
>
>Wow, last time I looked(which was about maybe two months ago, 386 was around
>two time as expensive as a US system. When I was there in 1992 January..i.e.
>this Jan, I could not site one 386-sx machine in any of department stores and
>386 at home was a rare site. 
  As of spring in 1991, most computers my friends had were 386SX or higher
with math coprocessor(Of course, this is not general because most of them are 
science and eng. majors.) And, my brother upgraded my old AT to 386 DX after 
I left Korea(in Fall 1991). And, it's a year ago and my brohter regrets
that he did not upgraded further last year. 
  The confusion about Korean PC market frequently occurs to many outsiders
who are not familiar with it. Last year  my English teacher(American)
instisted that the price of PCs in Korea was incredibly higher than that in
the US. He got his information from a dept. store where only laymen of
computers buy their computers. 
   He did  not look at where he should have looked at to find real market
price of PCs in Korea. Neither did you seem to look at the right place to
find 486 PCs.  That's NOT a dept. store but Yongsan Electronics Market or 
many small vendors around schools and towns. In Austrailia, they sell 486 PC
or whatever the most advanced model of PC at a dept. store,don't  they? 
In the US and Korea, that's not the case. Even though sometimes they have 
a few at dept. store, price is usually higher(in Korea much higher ) than
when getting one via other routes. 
Of course, brand machines in Korea is very expensive,but almost no one likes
to buy computer made by big companies like Hyundai,Samsung or Daewoo possible
exception being the board of education to buy PCs to install at primary and 
secondary schools 
 Why do they have to pay much more than for high-end model to get a low-end
model? 
  In spring of 1991, 386DX with 387 coprocessor,200MB HDD,8MB RAM,128k cash,
VGA card,and VGA monitor costed about $3000 or even less. Now,I guess, 486 DX
 with similar settings costs less than $2500 in Korea,which is definitely 
higher  than ,but not twice as high as the lowest price for 486DX in the US.
>>
>>. And, a large of number of workstations are in use at Korean schools and
>>research institutes.  Get a lists of hosts at site like KAIST(Korea Adv. 
>>Inst. of Sci. and Tech) ,KETRI(Korea Electronics and Telecommuncation Res.
>> Inst.),and POSTECH(Pohang Inst. of Sci.& Tech) and check host type by 'host
>>-t hifo' if you can use it)
>
>I am not saying anything against some institues but some universities don't 
>even have a stupid VAX machines.
>
>>  Korea has only 2 Supercomputers ,one at SERI(System Eng. Res. Institute in
>>Taedok Science Town in Taejon) and the other at Kia Motor Company. Frankly,I'm
>>not sure of this because maybe other motor companies like Hyundai and Daewoo
>>bought their own. 
  Recently, I got to know that Samsung got theirs.(Cray Y-MP)
The number of supercomputers in Korea is still much smaller than that in Taiwan
with about 10(or more).  
>
>Okay, you are probably wondering why I am saying the standards are so low(well
>lower than here, and definitely than in US. I think the schools are bloody 
>underfunded and it is ridiculous thinking that Korea(my country) is a really
>advanced country. We gotta really wake up to reality and try and catch up
>instead of taking proud in ourselves.
>For future flamers, you may think that computer standards is not a good indication
>of how well a country is advanced...but it goes some way to describe where about
>we are.
   Why did you write this? I've never said about overall standard of Korean
schools compared with that of US schools. Neither did I take pride in
current standard of Korean schools.   As you said , some  schools 
don't even have a studpid VAX 7xxx. And many highly regarded still use
IBM 3xxx and only Bitnet(No Internet).  Everyone knows that standard of 
Korean schools and Korean science is far behind that of the US and
other advanced countries including Austrailia where you are. Who don't know 
that? No nobel prize winner from Korea. Workstations I mentioned before are all
foreign made(Of course, Sambo makes SUN clone(?),but it's not their work.)
The less number of papers published per professor than that in countries
like Thailand. Many an evidence to support that. Hence, everyone ,I believe ,
works hard to catch up with advanced countries whether in Korea or abroad.
I feel the exactly the same way as you regarding a ridiculous idea  that
Korea is an advanced country or that Korea has to join OECD(Org. for(?) Economic
Coop. and Development; A club of developed countries). We have a very very
long way to go to be an advanced country.  

 As for my previous article, I wrote it to give netters having left Korea
for long time a feeling of what computer facilities are like at
some(NOT ALL) Korean schools because many netters tend to regard computer
facilities at every Korean school and res. institute as primitive as they 
were when they left Korea. I'd rather have stressed that numerous 
workstations are not reality at all schools but only at some schools, 
which ,I thought , was made clear by naming SOME of them.  

  Jungshik Shin


Newsgroups: soc.culture.korean