Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!ames!amdcad!sun!concertina!fiddler
From: fiddler@concertina.Sun.COM (Steve Hix)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.hardware
Subject: Re: Mac IIfx or IIci (parity)
Message-ID: <133535@sun.Eng.Sun.COM>
Date: 27 Mar 90 19:15:18 GMT
References: <18876@boulder.Colorado.EDU> <22291@netnews.upenn.edu> <39856@apple.Apple.COM>
Sender: news@sun.Eng.Sun.COM
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In article <39856@apple.Apple.COM>, jrg@Apple.COM (John R. Galloway Jr.) writes:
> In article <22291@netnews.upenn.edu> meuchen@grad1.cis.upenn.edu (Paul Eric Menchen) writes:
> >In article <18876@boulder.Colorado.EDU> watermaa@tramp.Colorado.EDU (WATERMAN ALEXANDER S) writes:
> >>Is it [parity] worth the extra $450 for this feature?
> >Given the choice you would probably want no parity. Most poeple have
> >now agreed that parity is a bad way to check for errors. Have you ever
> >had a memory error, besides the power being turned off? I doubt it.
> 
>    I suspect your are right (as you state later) that it was for gov bids.

It was.  Specsmanship.

>   I am POed that Apple bundled the parity option with the 80SC, so you can't
> get a diskless IIfx with parity.

I doubt if you need to be.  A dealer would probably accomodate you if you
really wanted parity with no 80SC.

On the other hand, parity buys you little or nothing: from reports so far,
a parity error results in little more than a message popping up declaring
that the error occurred, and now it's time to reboot.

Just detection (boom), no correction.

------------
"...Then anyone who leaves behind him a written manual, and likewise
anyone who receives it, in the belief that such writing will be clear
and certain, must be exceedingly simple-minded..."   Plato, _Phaedrus_