Newsgroups: comp.arch
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: Needs of Clerical Users. (was re: fed up with mips)
Message-ID: <1989Oct25.170613.637@utzoo.uucp>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <76700077@p.cs.uiuc.edu> <1319@crdos1.crd.ge.COM> <4576@yunexus.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 25 Oct 89 17:06:13 GMT

In article <4576@yunexus.UUCP> davecb@yunexus.UUCP (David Collier-Brown) writes:
>  Architecturally, the low-end worker needs an inexpensive processor with
>moderate power...  It does require that the components evolve to
>track their high-cost bretheren (so one can use this years software on
>them: 68010s need not apply!).

Just to be difficult :-), I would contend that this is exactly wrong.
It will not be economical to provide processors to the low-end worker
unless one can be confident that they will *not* need to track the headlong
progress of high-cost computers... because such tracking is expensive, too
expensive for the bulk of the low-end-worker market.  For that market, one
needs to be able to make an investment that will be good for 5-10 years.
Always needing to have the latest thing on your desk makes Sun very rich
and you very poor.

I think Rob Pike has the right idea:  put something positively doddering,
like a 68010 :-), on the desks, and have it do *nothing* but interaction.
Centralize the heavy computing where it can be updated centrally in a
relatively economical way.
-- 
A bit of tolerance is worth a  |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
megabyte of flaming.           | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu