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From: wnn@ornl.gov (Wolfgang N. Naegeli)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.system
Subject: Re: ROM Disk and other machines?
Message-ID: <1990Nov9.163823.29938@cs.utk.edu>
Date: 9 Nov 90 16:38:23 GMT
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Organization: University of Tennessee/Oak Ridge National Laboratory
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References:<5932@munnari.oz.au> <11074.2736d042@amherst.bitnet> <1990Nov9.032405.13315@cs.utk.edu> <1990Nov9.044036.7385@cs.umn.edu>

In article <1990Nov9.044036.7385@cs.umn.edu> kanefsky@cs.umn.edu (Steve 
Kanefsky) writes:
> Come to think of it, I can't imagine how slow it would be to have a lab
> full of Classics running diskless over LocalTalk (or PhoneNet or 
whatever).
> Perhaps with some extra RAM and a healthy RAM cache...

Many schools really are on a shoestring budget and willing to sacrifice 
performance for having the basic capability at all. I know of a couple of 
labs that boot off a floppy, but run all their applications off the server.

Once an application is running, little access is made to the System 
Folder. If you select your applications carefully, you can get pretty 
decent performance even with some 20 machines off a single AppleShare 
server. WriteNow, for example, preforms admirably in such situations. Such 
environments and low end machines were one of the prime considerations in 
its development. It also happens to be very easy to learn and to offer 
everything that is needed for standard business correspondence as well as 
for writing a dissertation. It's feature list may not be as long as that 
of some other word processors, but almost all of its features are truly 
useful and not just gimmicks of little practical value. You get a lot of 
bang for the buck, not only in terms of software costs but also in terms 
of what you have to spend for hardware to make good use of it.

**************************************************************
Wolfgang N. Naegeli
Internet: wnn@ornl.gov     Bitnet: wnn@ornlstc
Phone: 615-574-6143        Fax: 615-574-6141 (MacFax)
QuickMail (QM-QM): Wolfgang Naegeli @ 615-574-4510
Snail: Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Oak Ridge, TN 37831-6206
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