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From: squibby@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Clark L. Breyman)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: STs and Colleges: A Proposal
Keywords: st, universities, colleges, minix,unix
Message-ID: <18582@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU>
Date: 18 Jan 90 00:53:19 GMT
References: <481784b3.14a1f@force.UUCP>
Sender: news@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU
Organization: Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH
Lines: 63


	A couple comment on the ST as a college machine:
		- I have been using a 520 for the last 
		  four years ( last summer mine un-GLUEd
		  so I did the trade in)
	
		- The ST is acceptably cheap and public domain/
		  shareware make it a very useable computer.
		  I found I was able to do my lower division work
		  on it quite easily.

		- The majority of college users will probably spend
		 most of their micro-computer time doing wordprocessing.
		 A simple user interface such as the Macinto$h has 
		 real advantages over vi/emacs and TeX. 

		- The university I go to (UC San Diego) relies on Unix
		 environments for the majority of its teaching, so 
		 an at-home UNIX box makes things nice, but the processing
		 and resources neccessary for the assignments would 
		 severely tax any machine 1)running a 16bit bus 2)at <12MHz
		 3)without transparent virtual memory or extremely large
		 memory. 

			e.g.: A Data Structures Class uses C++ exclusively.
				The G++ ST port document states that running
				with less than 2 meg is right out and less
				than 4 meg is silly. The assignment programs
				require gigantic memory pools such that
				virtual memory was a must.

		- The College I am visiting (Dartmouth) does reccomment the
		  Macintosh and has instituted a gigantic Appletalk netowork 
		  to support students using Macs. From an outsider's point
		  of view, learning programming on a mac seems like it would
		  unduly painfull ( and possible leave the programmer with 
		  misconceptions about programming larger systems). Yet this
		 is not an issue here, as most folks use their macs for
		 wordprocessing, spreadsheet work, macintosh mail and terminals.
		
	The basic problem I see in this proposed package is that it artificially
	tries to blur the distinction between a workstation and a powerful
	personal computer. For a college or university to endorse a computer,
	it would be necessary that that computer could be painlessly included
	in a campus medium or high speed network (>100Kbaud) and be a good,
	well-supported application box. For a college or university to endorse
	a workstation, it would be necessary that that computer met the
	above criterion and provide sufficient computing power to do school
	assignments. The ST fall short because: support is tough, GDOS is 
	not as transparent as the equivalent function om the mac and there  
	is little information on networking ST's. 

	One last note THEN I STOP RAMBLING:
	The price issue is a strange one. Spending $2K for a mac makes sense
	at a school that provides good support for mac users and that is
	going to set you back $60-$80K in tuition over four years anyway. 
	Telling students at a public university (~$2K /year in tuition) 
	that whether or not they can afford a $3K computer will make a 
	difference in their academic success has more ramifications that 
	simply the which-brand question.

	Yours in (unneccessary) verbosity,
		Clark