Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!decwrl!shelby!eos!eugene From: eugene@eos.UUCP (Eugene Miya) Newsgroups: comp.arch Subject: Re: What is a mainframe? Message-ID: <4186@eos.UUCP> Date: 30 Jun 89 09:06:40 GMT References: <27709@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV> <34038@bu-cs.BU.EDU> Reply-To: eugene@eos.UUCP (Eugene Miya) Organization: NASA Ames Research Center, Calif. Lines: 38 In article sbf10@amdahl.uts.amdahl.com (Samuel Fuller) writes: >In article <34038@bu-cs.BU.EDU> bzs@bu-cs.BU.EDU (Barry Shein) writes: >> Eugene Brooks wrote: >>>What is a mainframe? It's an OBSOLETE COMPUTER! > >>So, I'd agree that mainframes are mostly obsolete for all but perhaps >>the fortune 500 companies who really do need to quickly manage on the >>order of hundreds of gigabytes of data in a timely matter. Then Sam wrote: >I find it hard to believe that a 50 Billion plus dollar-per-year business >can be considered obsolete or even mostly obsolete. The mainframe >segment of the computer market *continues* to grow and will probably >be around for a lot longer than most of the posters to this newsgroup >would like to believe. > >What is a mainframe? It's a commercial/business supercomputer. Well, I just got this Datamation rag (from my older days 8), and while I can't quite get as extreme as Keith, I don't think, nor do the Datamation folk think that mainframes are continuing growth. They are peaking, stagnating, (add your own adjectives). The growth is largely in perpherals like the disk drives for the mainframes. Pardon my comments to mainframe manufacturers, but maybe its approaching time to try and replace lots of these machines. Sure, the micros don't have the bus bandwidth, but is this a matter of time and integration, or do you believe such bandwidth will be forever confinded to mainframes and supercomputers? Yes, COBOL and RPG on future micros. 8) Another gross generalization from --eugene miya, NASA Ames Research Center, eugene@aurora.arc.nasa.gov resident cynic at the Rock of Ages Home for Retired Hackers: "You trust the `reply' command with all those different mailers out there?" "If my mail does not reach you, please accept my apology." {ncar,decwrl,hplabs,uunet}!ames!eugene Live free or die.