Xref: utzoo comp.misc:1877 misc.headlines:2341 misc.jobs.misc:1131 talk.rumors:1037
Path: utzoo!mnetor!spectrix!clewis
From: clewis@spectrix.UUCP (Chris R. Lewis)
Newsgroups: comp.misc,misc.headlines,misc.jobs.misc,talk.rumors
Subject: Re: Doom and Gloom, as they say, revisited (computer market fai
Message-ID: <444@spectrix.UUCP>
Date: 12 Feb 88 21:28:36 GMT
References: <1177@polyslo.UUCP> <3050@cup.portal.com>
Reply-To: clewis@spectrix.UUCP (Chris R. Lewis)
Distribution: na
Organization: Spectrix Microsystems Inc., Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Lines: 49

In article <3050@cup.portal.com> Rick_R_Kitts@cup.portal.com writes:
>In <1052@maynard.BSW.COM> campbell@maynard.BSW.COM (Larry Campbell)  says:

>>    2)	Software marches on, and the old hardware is too small and slow to
>>	run the new software.  Try running OS/2, or Windows, or Microport
>>	System V with DOS Merge, on an 8088-based machine.
>
> This is a kinda gray area. Does a secretary really need to multi-task and
> search for all occurences of the word 'the' in 58uSec? If I was paying out
> of my budget I'd probably say no. The attitude a manager has on this question
> may largely determine the number of upgrades that are purchased. 

There's an incredible amount of *customer* excitement being focused on
being able to do DOS multitasking (Microport w/DOSmerge or 386/IX w/VPIX).

Most offices started out small where sharing data wasn't particularly 
important, so they "grew into" a couple of disconnected PC's.  Networked
by floppy disk if at all.

These applications are becoming BIG.  And the offices are often stuck with
a particular set of programs.  And, they want to add a few more secretaries,
data entry, and the manager is starting to want integrated statistics ....

So, all of these sites are realizing that not only do they have to expand
their total computing power, but they have to get their current systems 
to talk to each other and add more "users" to the whole shebang.

Well, you could add PC's, AT's etc. at 3-5K per user with difficult
to administer and occasionally flakey LANS, or expand by UNIX + DOS 
emulation multi-user systems at $500 to $1000 per "seat".

Performance and functionality expectations continue to grow.  No matter
what.  So, there will continue to be new generations of software and
hardware.  

It wasn't so long ago that "universal wisdom" suggested that only one 
computer (with roughly 386 or 68020 performance if I recall) would be 
needed to provide all of the compute requirements of North America.
We all know how wrong that prediction was...  (sorry, no reference)

My grandfather used to contract CPU time off a machine in New York
at $100-$200 per CPU minute, (around 20 minutes of CPU per year)
and the performance of that machine was roughly one one-hundredth of 
a IBM PC....  Thing was made out of vacuum tubes and had a machine cycle
of around 300-500 microseconds (2-3 KIPS!).
-- 
Chris Lewis, Spectrix Microsystems Inc,
UUCP: {uunet!mnetor, utcsri!utzoo, lsuc, yunexus}!spectrix!clewis
Phone: (416)-474-1955