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From: jrg@apple.com (John R. Galloway Jr.)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sun
Subject: Advice sought on doc processing and slip on SparcStations
Keywords: Hardware
Message-ID: <9406@brazos.Rice.edu>
Date: 28 Jun 90 04:15:37 GMT
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Organization: Sun-Spots
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X-Sun-Spots-Digest: Volume 9, Issue 240, message 8

My sister, who is a Tex-on-Vax expert, is looking at a new job where they
are using Sparc's.  They have asked her to let them know what facilities
she would have to get to go there and she has asked me for some advice
(she is a statistician specializing on quality control of cancer data).
Anyway I suggested the following

o A Sparcstation1+, 8MB, 105MB disk, 19" 8 bit color for the office
  (hooked up to the local net on which is general NFS disk space and their
  main data base (which is Informix))
o A Sparcstation1+ 8MB 210MB disk, 19" mono at home
o 19.2 baud (trailblazer+) modems to run slip and get NFS access to servers
  from home
o FrameMaker
o Mathmetica

Questions:

0) Are there floating point options on the Sparc1+ that are worth getting
   (i.e. no custom programming and significant crunching improvement)
1) She does a lot of equation/table/graphing sort of doc work, does
   FrameMaker handle this well?  Is it the document processor of choice on
   Sun these days?  If need be can FramMaker paste in TeX generated stuff?
2) What other sw is being used by writers of highly math oriented papers?
3) Does Sun support slip?  if so what modems work best?
4) I recomended Mathematica (thought never having used it or FrameMaker)
   for scientific visualization work.  They use standard stat tools (like
   SAS) but it didn't sound like they were to sophisticated in graphics
   output and that is something she wants to get into.  Any stat folk out
   there using Sparcs and if so what sw are you using?
5) anyting I left out?

Thanks a lot (from my sister as well), please respond to jrg@apple.com
since I do not read this group.

internet     jrg@apple.com      John R. Galloway, Jr.
(soon to be) jrg@galloway.sj.ca.us
applelink    d3413              CEO..receptionist         795 Beaver Creek Way
human       (408) 259-2490      Galloway Research         San Jose, CA  95133

These are my views, NOT Apple's, I am a GUEST here, not an employee!!