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From: sysmgr@KING.ENG.UMD.EDU (Doug Mohney)
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: Portable Unix boxes [was "Killer Micros"]
Message-ID: <00933484.3084BF80@KING.ENG.UMD.EDU>
Date: 6 Mar 90 21:06:33 GMT
References: <9748@portia.Stanford.EDU> <00933399.8ACEFBE0@KING.ENG.UMD.EDU>,<1990Mar6.184634.14749@smsc.sony.com>
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Reply-To: sysmgr@KING.ENG.UMD.EDU (Doug Mohney)
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In article <1990Mar6.184634.14749@smsc.sony.com>, amir@smsc.sony.com (Amir ) writes:
>This brings up another topic.  Toshiba, as the poster mentioned, has long been
>rumored to be making a "portable" SPARC systesm.  Can anyone speculate
>as to how successful a *portable* Unix box would be specially  when
>the competition is 286/386 machines that run both DOS and Unix
>applications?  Off course, SPARC machine would run faster but what
>kind of people would need the extra speed?
>
The military might not mind having a few which run like lightening. With
the government push towards POSIX, portable UN*X boxes will eventually,
someday, find a niche. 

>Note that I am not saying that this is not a good idea.  It is just that
>what most people do with a portable machine can be done with current
>intel based portables...

Weeel, how good is a UNIX box without a network to connect it to? This
might be the limiting factor in running portable UNIX since (in my finite
wisdom) UNIX boxes are either used for multiuser things, network things,
or workstation things which usually want 1024 x 768 or something equally
pretty which you won't find out of current LCD technology.