Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!lll-winken!lll-lcc!ames!umd5!purdue!gatech!udel!rochester!pt.cs.cmu.edu!andrew.cmu.edu!mp1u+ From: mp1u+@andrew.cmu.edu (Michael Portuesi) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga Subject: Re: AMIX? Message-ID: Date: 27 Apr 88 01:36:01 GMT References: <466@mailrus.cc.umich.edu> <863@gethen.UUCP> <391@brambo.UUCP> <50356@sun.uucp>, <1878@sugar.UUCP> Organization: Carnegie Mellon Lines: 41 In-Reply-To: <1878@sugar.UUCP> > *Excerpts from: 23-Apr-88 Re: AMIX? Peter da Silva@sugar.UUC (3262)* > Memory... well, 4 megabytes is nice. I have that much in my Amiga. But > it's not necessary. Let's say you need enough memory that you can run the > rest of the stuff without swapping. Carnegie-Mellon specs 1 Meg for a > workstation, by the way. The Sun 3/50 I am typing this message on (running Unix and the Andrew software environment) has about 4 MB of memory. The IBM RTs at Carnegie Mellon generally have about 6 MB. Anything less and they would be totally useless. When the Andrew environment at CMU officially moves to X for its window manager, they'll be even more constrained since X is a memory pig, much more than the window manager currently in use (developed at CMU for the Andrew environment). When that happens, I expect the few Sun-2's around here to disappear quickly, since they will no longer be able to keep up with what is demanded of them. Basically, Carnegie Mellon is outright lying when they say 1 MB is sufficient memory for a workstation. In the Computer Science department, which already runs Mach and X on its workstations, 10 and 12 MB are common figures. > Windowing... The Amiga has windowing. The Mac has windowing (echoes of > Jonathan Livingston Seagull: "Just flying? A mosquito can do that much!"). > You don't need megabytes of RAM or Disk for windowing. You do if you want to run X on your workstation. > Networking... that's a toughy. But do you really need it for a home > workstation? I don't think Chuck was defining a "home" workstation...he was defining a workstation. And networking is one of the most useful aspects of a workstation. --M Michael Portuesi / Carnegie Mellon University ARPA/UUCP: mp1u+@andrew.cmu.edu BITNET: rainwalker@drycas "Memories are uncertain friends, when recalled by messages" -- OMD, "Messages"