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From: jss@sjuvax.UUCP (J. Shapiro)
Newsgroups: net.college,net.cse
Subject: Re: Re: Why force the AT&T at UVM?
Message-ID: <1144@sjuvax.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 12-May-85 02:04:16 EDT
Article-I.D.: sjuvax.1144
Posted: Sun May 12 02:04:16 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 13-May-85 03:20:28 EDT
References: <380@uvm-cs.UUCP>, <281@tilt.FUN> <239@uvm-gen.UUCP>
Organization: St. Joseph's University, Phila. PA.
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Xref: watmath net.college:733 net.cse:391

> 
>   >Now, I'm sorry, but an AT&T 6300 would be pretty much useless to me as
>   >a personal computer.  Given the type of projects I work on (screen
>   >editors, artificial intelligence, compilers, etc.) the 6300 simply
>   >doesn't have either the cycles, the disk, or the memory that I need.
>

I sat back and agreed with this one, but seeing the response, I want to say
something...

> 	You don't sound like a freshman, or even a sophomore to me.

I am a Junior at Haverford College, and I have thought the IBM PC was a joke
as a micro since it was introduced. It is still unable to solve any problems
which were then remotely interesting to me. Please note that at the time I was
in *HIGH SCHOOL*, and I was far far far from the only person who recognized
the silly limits of the box, and who counseled people against the purchase
of that machine. Regrettably, many people did not realize those limits, and
we are now stuck with this cruddy "standard" of nonfunctionality. Consider
that the segment size limit is a real problem. Even Intel admits it.
To me a minimally acceptable working system for my own day to day use would
be a 68000/68020 or 32016/32032 with appropriate MMU and FPU, at least 1Meg
of memory, and at least a 20Mbyte hard disk with an access time no higher
than 30 ns. It should be single user, but multitasking.

I own a Mac, and I am waiting for the Hard drive, soon to be available from
General Computers.  I deem it barely satisfactory, even with 512k, and
highly overpriced. The lack of an MMU is a crucial piece of brain damage.

> Keep in mind that the basic system is adequate for all of the students
> for several years, at least.

Bullshit. I can think of 10 people in my class of 246 who would drive that
machine into the ground.  On the other hand, those 10 can badly abuse VAXen
too.  Note please that Haverford is not a school much into CS. At any
school with a CS department your percentage of CPU killers is likely to be
far far higher.

Also note that the machine you are having students buy doesn't even have
enough real horsepower to do single user text formatting at a reasonable
speed, and that for this reason, no one has even tried to come out with
a decent text formatter for the 8086. Microsoft Word is very good, but
also VERY SLOW.  One of mny main reasons for buying a Mac is that it has
enough flexibility for me to write a decent formatting package.

>  As far as doing AI and other more involved
> types of activities, remember two things:
> 
> 	1.) It can make a good workstation to communicate with the bigger
> 	   resources on campus.

So what. If I am doing personal AI work I certainly don't want to use
Haverford's machinery, because this would render any of my results partially
the property of the College.  This policy at the University of Pennsylvania
stops students from persuing a lot of good work. I sincerely believe that my
ideas are worth something (so do my clients...), and I certainly would
not wish to "give" them to a University when they are potentially worth
a great deal to me commercially. For this reason I have been sitting on
several ideas until I can purchase adequate hardware.

> 	2.) Seven expansion slots.  They may not be good for 20 MHz, but
> 	   there's still a lot that can be done with them.
>

Not with the segment size of 64K.  Most useful languages are stack based, and
good bloody luck doing a Lisp implementation that runs acceptably on a small
segment architecture. Consider also the memory addressing limitations of DOS.

> The 6300 will certainly never offer the power of a SUN, but it is felt to
> be a suitable workstation for the vast majority of the applications that
> will be run by undergraduates, including CS majors.

I agree that 95% of all people will find this arrangement entirely
satisfactory. For the remainder you are wasting (by the time they have
purchased enough hard disk and memory to avoid screaming every time they
turn on the box) something like $8,000. This would really piss me off, and
the lack of consideration it implies, and the lack of concern about my hard
earned money would most certainly stop me from applying to your institution.

I submit that the University of Vermont would do well to consider allowing
students more flexibility in purchasing their machinery. You wouldn't insist
that everyone drive a Porsche, and neither do I, but I also wouldn't dream
of mandating that everyone purchase only a Deux Cheveux (ask your local
French department - the Deux Cheveux is noted for the fact that it is cheaper
to replace than to repair, and drives like it).

The AT&T is not a bad box - in particular it does not claim to be anything
more than it is. It is, however, inadequate for enough applications that
it should not be the only choice available.

Jonathan S. Shapiro
Haverford College
System Manager and Computing Consultant