Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!rpi!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen
From: davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.COM (Wm E Davidsen Jr)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Sun's Competitive Strategy (Was: Re: P1754
Message-ID: <2987@crdos1.crd.ge.COM>
Date: 4 Dec 90 14:41:25 GMT
References: <1635@unix386.Convergent.COM> <1990Dec2.014554.3491@Neon.Stanford.EDU> <2760@cirrusl.UUCP> <303@mesa.alc.com>
Reply-To: davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.com (bill davidsen)
Organization: GE Corp R&D Center, Schenectady NY
Lines: 18

In article <303@mesa.alc.com> lovejoy@alc.com (Alan Lovejoy) writes:

| "Better" is the enemy of "good enough."  Once a device does its job acceptably,
| price becomes the only issue.  For most users, an 8 MHz cpu is sufficient.  
| That is, it is PERCEIVED TO BE sufficient.  

  Truth. The reason that many people are buying SX's instead of 486's,
or Mac Classic instead of Mac IIFX, is that they get the job done just
as fast. Consider that most of the work done on small computers is just
not CPU bound. Home and business users typically run spreadsheets, with
leters, design fancy party invitations, and generally don't use much
CPU.

  And the big problems which are CPU intensive may well require
something really large, and not be practical on 28 MIPS, either.
-- 
bill davidsen	(davidsen@crdos1.crd.GE.COM -or- uunet!crdgw1!crdos1!davidsen)
    VMS is a text-only adventure game. If you win you can use unix.


Brought to you by Super Global Mega Corp .com