Risc System/6000 (120MB disk feasibility)

[Dick Dunn]

marc at stingray..austin.ibm.com (Marc J. Stephenson/140000;1C-22) writes:
> One thing that people might wish to consider is that the UNIX market is no
> longer limited to scientific/engineering; it is growing quite a bit in the
> commercial sector...

True...but we're talking about workstations, aren't we?  It's going to be a
little longer before the commercial world is big on workstations in this
class.  It will happen, but keep in perspective what sort of a machine
you've got here.

> ...Why should they have to pay for a lot of disk and memory if
> all that they are doing is running terminals at a video checkout counter?

Now, let's stop and think about this a moment, and let's admit that you
don't use a machine in the 6000 class to control a few glorified cash
registers.

> Whether a customer needs more performance and disk space will largely be
> controlled by what they are going to use the systems for.

Yes, but there is a general tendency to want more storage as you increase
the speed (and cost) of the core of the machine.  There are extremes--places
where you need minimal power and lots of storage or vice-versa.  But
they're unusual.

While I think I could use as much crunch as these machines have, and still
do useful work on a 120, I've also seen a fair number of moderate-speed
386es (20 MHz and under, no cache, which puts them at 1/8 or less the
claimed speed of the low-end RIOS) with 120 Mb or more well-used.  So, it's
reasonable for people to be asking whether 120 Mb isn't leaving the base
configuration a little too carved-down for such a fast machine.
-- 
Dick Dunn     rcd at ico.isc.com    uucp: {ncar,nbires}!ico!rcd     (303)449-2870
   ...Don't lend your hand to raise no flag atop no ship of fools.