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From: bzs@BU-CS.BU.EDU (Barry Shein)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: What kinds of things would you want in the GNU OS?
Message-ID: <20520@adm.BRL.MIL>
Date: 6 Aug 89 20:05:16 GMT
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>Sun's would be an obvious choice, but what about the MMU?
>Does anyone without proprietary knowledge know what it does?
>Can we just poke numbers at it and see what happens?
>
>	Root Boy Jim

I would imagine the 68030 based machines (eg. 3/80) make this moot
since the MMU is integral to the chip so should conform to Motorola
docs. In that class I'd be more interested in looking towards the
SPARC and MIPS based machines.

I have heard rumors that the '386 (et al) machines come up as a likely
platform. Not because they're particularly wonderful but because
they're cheap and plentiful at the moment. An adequate no-name machine
can be had for around $5K, including disk etc (certainly adequate for
kernel devpt projects, more memory and disk may be needed in final
user configurations but those prices are coming down rapidly so
anticipating those curves seems prudent, with 4Mb chips coming and
general disk prices I'd guess 386/16MB/300MB machines will be
available in the $5K range in a year or so, '486 for a little more.)

Now someone will say "...and you will need it..." (ie. 16MB/300MB),
sic transit gloria mundi.

	-Barry Shein

Software Tool & Die, Purveyors to the Trade
1330 Beacon Street, Brookline, MA 02146, (617) 739-0202
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