Path: utzoo!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!swrinde!cs.utexas.edu!bcm!lib!thesis1.hsch.utexas.edu
From: jmaynard@thesis1.hsch.utexas.edu (Jay Maynard)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Data General NEW AVIION machine
Message-ID: <4855@lib.tmc.edu>
Date: 18 Mar 91 21:29:14 GMT
References: <40198@cup.portal.com> <12391@pt.cs.cmu.edu> <1991Mar18.200554.26908@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>
Sender: usenet@lib.tmc.edu
Organization: University of Texas Medical School at Houston
Lines: 25
Nntp-Posting-Host: thesis1.hsch.utexas.edu

In article <1991Mar18.200554.26908@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu> mcdonald@aries.scs.uiuc.edu (Doug McDonald) writes:
>What is means is that if they SOLD multiprocessor rs6000s today the
>resulting speed would be so much higher - and the product so much more
>cost effective - than their mainframes that they simply refuse to do it.

Horse hockey.

They said that about the original PC/RT. They said that about the RS/6000.
IBM is still selling mainframes.

Know why? I/O, pure and simple. IBM mainframe customers care as much or more
about raw I/O power as they do about CPU power. Remember that a large portion
of mainframe-style DP is simply moving bytes from point A to point B, doing
a minor amount of simple arithmetic, and moving the result to point C - in a
loop from 1 to 5e+09.

Let me know when an RS/6000 can run existing COBOL code, drive 20,000
terminals, and handle tens of disk requests to hundreds of disk drives while
providing subsecond response time. I'll start worrying about the future of
the IBM mainframe then.
-- 
Jay Maynard, EMT-P, K5ZC, PP-ASEL | Never ascribe to malice that which can
jmaynard@thesis1.hsch.utexas.edu  | adequately be explained by stupidity.
  "You can even run GNUemacs under X-windows without paging if you allow
          about 32MB per user." -- Bill Davidsen  "Oink!" -- me