Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen
From: davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.COM (Wm E Davidsen Jr)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Fed up with MIPS
Message-ID: <1419@crdos1.crd.ge.COM>
Date: 24 Oct 89 15:32:15 GMT
References: <76700077@p.cs.uiuc.edu> <2526@uceng.UC.EDU> <6626@ficc.uu.net>
Reply-To: davidsen@crdos1.UUCP (bill davidsen)
Organization: GE Corp R&D Center
Lines: 22

In article <6626@ficc.uu.net>, peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva) writes:

|  A large part of the problem is that the operating system on this 8088-based
|  PC was designed to allow one person to use the computer at a time. A network
|  is a multi-user environment, and without a multi-user computer (multitasking
|  with at least application-level protection) you can't make effective use of
|  one.

  Actually the old XT will run UNIX nicely, being quite a bit bigger
than the original PDP-11. We still have XT's and AT's running PC/IX
(SysIII) because they do what is needed and no one can cost justify an
upgrade. The hardware protect is adequate for a non-hostile environment,
I have yet to see anyone reset the segment registers by accident, and
for a system to allow a few people to read mail and news they were fine.

  Not that I'd ever go back, but the hardware is capable of more than
MS-DOS will ever get out of it.
-- 
bill davidsen	(davidsen@crdos1.crd.GE.COM -or- uunet!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen)
"The world is filled with fools. They blindly follow their so-called
'reason' in the face of the church and common sense. Any fool can see
that the world is flat!" - anon