Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!apple!usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sdd.hp.com!hplabs!hpda!hpwala!hpwadac!lupienj From: lupienj@hpwadac.hp.com (John Lupien) Newsgroups: comp.arch Subject: Re: OS cost component of workstation Message-ID: <1424@hpwala.wal.hp.com> Date: 14 Nov 90 19:48:01 GMT References: <2176@lupine.NCD.COM> <42310@mips.mips.COM> <3686@skye.ed.ac.uk> <1990Nov1.234831.2066@ico.isc.com> <3699@skye.ed.ac.uk> <2840@crdos1.crd.ge.COM> Sender: netnews@hpwala.wal.hp.com Reply-To: lupienj@hpwadac.UUCP (John Lupien) Organization: Speaking for myself... Lines: 24 In article peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva) writes: >In article <2840@crdos1.crd.ge.COM> davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.com (bill davidsen) writes: >> and concluded that to run a useful unix environment (as opposed to a >> toy), you want 8MB RAM and 200MB disk. Otherwise you give up compilers, >> or X, or news, or whatever, and you certainly give up performance. >Sigh. 4 Meg and 72 Meg disk is planty for a useful UNIX development >system. I've done real work with a 40 Meg disk, but it's not very >happy. >X is a frill, not a necessity. News is a frill, not a necessity. It wasn't that long ago that I was using VENIX on an 8086 machine, with 20MB disk and (shudder) 128KB memory. This was intended to be a serious development project, too, and yes, we had compilers. X, news, and other frills were certainly out of the question, but the product (such as it was) got built, and worked pretty well. It didn't take much to get swapping involved, so one had to be careful, but basically Peter is right: *NIX does not imply megabytes of memory, nor does it require enormous disks, but if you don't have them, you must give up the frills. --- John R. Lupien lupienj@hpwarq.hp.com