Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!apple!mips!mash From: mash@mips.COM (John Mashey) Newsgroups: comp.arch Subject: Re: X-terms v. PCs v. Workstations Message-ID: <32382@winchester.mips.COM> Date: 29 Nov 89 18:33:17 GMT References: <1128@m3.mfci.UUCP> <1989Nov22.175128.24910@ico.isc.com> <3893@scolex.sco.COM> <39361@lll-winken.LLNL.GOV> <17305@netnews.upenn.edu> <1989Nov25.000120.18261@world.std.com> <1989Nov27.144016.23181@jarvis.csri.toronto.edu> <1989Nov27.213238.24130@cs.rochest Reply-To: mash@mips.COM (John Mashey) Organization: MIPS Computer Systems, Inc. Lines: 68 In article <549@torsqnt.UUCP> david@torsqnt.UUCP (David Haynes) writes: >However, a little time ago a program called 'dclock' was posted to the >X sources newsgroup and nearly everyone compiled and ran this program. >It had a neat digital display that slowly scrolled the numbers whenever >the hours or minutes changed. Now, whenever the hour changed the centralized >system supporting the users just *crawled* along. It turns out that the >network traffic generated by the smooth scrolling of the numbers was >horrific and that the network was getting saturated. This tends to argue >that some applications are best left on a dedicated workstation. > >Naturally, intelligent workstations with a large centralized server would >be ideal, but other considerations (cost, data security, backup, software >maintenance, ...) also come into play. This leads nicely into the observations >that Rayan was making in his articles. Well, actually, I think there is a much more cost-effective technology for this: it's far more distributed than any other choice; it has zero impact on the network or central site; it is reliable; some releases include small calculator functions and useful alarms; fonts and such are trivially chosen by the user; it has portability than an X-terminal. It's called a wristwatch..... ----- More seriosuly, this does illustate that sometimes, when one trades a centralized environment [minicomputer plus ASCII terminals] for a more distributed one [workstations or PCs], you're kidding yourself if you think the network isn't a central resource, and that it is HARDER to manage than a simpler big machine. [This is not an argument for central machines, just an observation that one must have a clear view of reality.] If work can be done on an isolated machine, that's fine, but people in organizations want to share data, and now at least part of the system is a shared resource that needs sensible management, not anarchy. There's nothing that brings this home like having an Ethernet board go crazy and start trashing a net, and have to shut everything down, one at a time, to find it, belying the "if my system goes down, it doesn't bother anybody" model. How about getting this off the sociology track [because most of it came down to "I know good compcenters" vs "I don't], and consider some of the interesting system architectural issues, like: 1) How much load do X-window terminals put on a a host? 2) How much load do diskless nodes put on a host? 3) If the people are doing the same kind of work, does the host do more or less disk I/O in cases 1) or 2)? How does the Ethernet traffic differ? 4) Experiences with X-window terminals: how many can be served, doing what kind of work, from what kind of host? 5) How do you characterize the kinds of work that people do in any of these environments? I'd be interested in data on any of these, as I think would many. (MIPS is neutral, of course, since we actively sell multi-user systems with ASCII terminals, servers, workstations, and X-window terminals, we probably have less axes to grind than many people; people here use a mixture of: X-window terminals, ASCII terminals, MIPS workstations, MACS, DECstations, Suns, Apollos, and PCs as makes sense them, NFSed with 400+ VUPS worth of servers. Distributed systems are wonderful:thank goodness the people who centrally wadminister this are great..) -- -john mashey DISCLAIMER: UUCP: {ames,decwrl,prls,pyramid}!mips!mash OR mash@mips.com DDD: 408-991-0253 or 408-720-1700, x253 USPS: MIPS Computer Systems, 930 E. Arques, Sunnyvale, CA 94086 Brought to you by Super Global Mega Corp .com