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From: ST402248@brownvm.brown.edu (F. Scott Porter)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: A3000UX Seems Fated
Message-ID: <39487@nigel.ee.udel.edu>
Date: 19 Dec 90 04:37:53 GMT
Sender: mmdf@ee.udel.edu
Lines: 38


>There is NO industry standard for private
>Busses, and one mfgrs RAM card won't work on another motherboard. And in
>almost every case these expansion RAM boards only let you add another 8
>meg of RAM, for a maximum of 16 meg without using the slower (and usually 16
>bit) bus. There is no way you are going to run 16 users with only 16 meg of
>RAM without doing quite a bit of swapping.

The Amiga 3000's motherboard memory could also be considered to be a
private bus since it is connected to the RAMBO memory controller directly
and not through a bus, and it isn't even in a slot.  More memory than fits
on the motherboard would also have to go into a possibly slower slot.

>       I don't do any data collection, but I can tell you once you put
>more than one or two users on any Unix box you will quickly hit the limits
>of the ISA bus, unless you are running terminals at <=9600 (I always use
>38400 or faster). There is nothing wrong with using a fast '386 as a
>personal workstation, as long as it is just that, personal. Trying to use
> ISA-based system as the heart of a multi-user network is just a waste of
>ny companies revenues. You would be better of buying a Sun, or a larger
>caleable system like a Sequent or Pyramid and using more terminals.

You think that I would use a PC of any kind as a high bandwidth file server
(Amiga included)? You must be kidding.  I also wouldn't use one for high
bandwidth data collection either.

Less venom, and a little respect would be nice too. None of us are stupid.
And I still claim that you can't state categorically that the Amiga by the
very nature of its bus out-performs intel based Unix boxes on I/O.  This
statement requires numbers, such as load under different numbers of real
world processes.

I hate to take the side of intel based boxes, since I would rather mow
lawns for a living than write any more assembler on one.  Flat address
spaces FOREVER!


                          -- Scott.