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From: c60b-1eq@e260-1e.berkeley.edu (Noam Mendelson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware
Subject: Re: Comparing 486 to 386 Systems
Message-ID: <1991Apr11.073556.9556@agate.berkeley.edu>
Date: 11 Apr 91 07:35:56 GMT
References: <1991Apr6.191106.5863@cc.helsinki.fi> <1991Apr7.033635.18412@agate.berkeley.edu> <1991Apr11.001619.6952@holos0.uucp>
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In article <1991Apr11.001619.6952@holos0.uucp> lbr@holos0.uucp (Len Reed) writes:
>In article <1991Apr7.033635.18412@agate.berkeley.edu> c60b-1eq@e260-1f.berkeley.edu (Noam Mendelson) writes:
>>Just a technical point--UN*X Sys V can run on an 8086.
>Of course a stray pointer can bring down the whole house of cards.

Yep.

>>And an 80286-based system can make a workable multi-user UN*X system.
>But the point being made was that 16-bit addressing really cripples you.
                                   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

On a 286?  24 bits.

>Once upon a time Unix ran on PDP-11's, but system V really doesn't work
>too well on anything less than a 32-bit processor.

Agreed.

>Of course, I can't imagine why anyone would buy anything less than a
>80386-SX even for a home computer running DOS; they've become so cheap that
>arguing over whether a 286 is adaquate [sic] is as dumb as arguing if an 8080
>would do the job.  Who cares?

Maybe you don't, but for others it's a prime consideration.  For
example, if you use your PC mainly as a terminal, the speed of the CPU
won't help you much.  It all depends on what applications you use it
for.

+==========================================================================+
| Noam Mendelson   ..!agate!ucbvax!web!c60b-1eq | "I haven't lost my mind, |
| c60b-1eq@web.Berkeley.EDU                     |  it's backed up on tape  |
| University of California at Berkeley          |  somewhere."             |