Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!hellgate.utah.edu!csn!ncar!gatech!usenet.ins.cwru.edu!ncoast!davewt
From: davewt@NCoast.ORG (David Wright)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.misc
Subject: Re: FACTS ABOUT WB2.0 (Was: Re:WB2.0 for non-A3000)
Message-ID: <1991Feb22.014212.681@NCoast.ORG>
Date: 22 Feb 91 01:42:12 GMT
References: <5569@baird.cs.strath.ac.uk> <1991Feb16.014403.11533@NCoast.ORG> <1991Feb17.004210.5827@sugar.hackercorp.com>
Organization: North Coast Public Access Un*x (ncoast)
Lines: 53

In article <1991Feb17.004210.5827@sugar.hackercorp.com> peter@sugar.hackercorp.com (Peter da Silva) writes:
>In article <1991Feb16.014403.11533@NCoast.ORG> davewt@NCoast.ORG (David Wright) writes:
>I disagree. The Microsoft Windows user interface is one of the best I've
>seen: the menus are always available, attached to the window, and don't
>require the mouse. All sides of a window are available for dragging, and
>there are keyboard commands to bring a window to the front so you don't
>have to dig around for the front gadget or push a bunch of other windows
>to the back. I can see why Apple's scared of it... it makes Finder look
>sick.
	Appearence is a matter of personaly taste, and I should have said so.
But *personally* I don't like the "drag/resize from any side/corner features
of Win3/Motif. I prefer one set are to move, one set area to resize, etc.
Also, Motif wastes far too much space on the border to support these features.
I mis the Amiga's nice, beutiful, and slender window borders whenever I have
to work in Win3 or X.
>
>You can buy a 386SX box with VGA and room for 8 MB on the motherboard
>for $875. That's big enough to run UNIX, easily. In fact you can probably
>get the box, a big disk, and the UNIX license (V.3.2) for the neighborhood
>of $2000.
	Sure you can, and it will be:
		16-bit, with no way to ever go to 32-bit.
		Be a slower model (for $875 retail you won't get a 25Mhz SX
			from any name brand worth buying).
>
>Makes even the base NeXT educational price look sick.
	If you are willing to settle for such a limited amount of power.
>As is the Amiga 2000, remember. Zorro-II is a 16-bit bus.
	Sure it is, but is is much faster than the ISA bus, supports multiple

bus masters, and is even more important, an autoconfig bus. The ISA and EISA
buses suck for a heavily used Unix system. Once you start sticking in 7 or
8 cards you have to really fight to find a free interupt, I/O port, etc.
>
>VGA is way slow, and for a windowing system the A3000 is way better. But
>for a base UNIX box -- fileserver or terminal server/timeshare system --
>it's hard to beat a 386SX.
	This is not true at all. A 3886SX sucks, no way around it. Perhaps if
you could find a 386SX box that was not an IBM compatible, it would be
quite good. But nomatter what kind of CPU you throw at the ISA bus it will
never compete with tha Zorro II/III bus. And as someone who knows quite a bit
about Unix, I am suprised you would even consider a bus that has such severe
overhead to be a viable alternative to the Zorro II bus, in any way but price.
>Yes, the Intel 520 is a nice box: Multibus-II, runs 2-headed UNIX on
>486 cards. A real honker. But we still use PCs for network capability
>servers (tapes, terminals, etc).
	Using an ISA device for your server when you have faster machines on the
network is silly. Why load the most accessed resources like the storage and
network server on a slower machine? You should put them on the fastest machine,
so your more expensive hardware isn't always waiting for the slower machine to
service it.

				Dave