What should GNU run on (was Re: what kinds of things . . .)

[Jim Frost]

In article <20519 at adm.BRL.MIL> Kemp at DOCKMASTER.NCSC.MIL writes:
|Sun itself has at least 4 Kernel Virtual Memory
|architectures - sun3 for the 68020, sun3x for the 68030, sun4 for the
|4/100 & 200 series, and sun4c for the Sparcstation-1.

Let us not forget 68000, 68010, and 80386.  While the 68k
architectures probably aren't all that different (don't really know
much about VM on them), the sparc and 80386 are quite different.

|Besides, I would much rather have a Sparcstation on my desk than a PC!

And I'd like a Cray.  But some of us have to be realistic.

As a sidebar, it's interesting to see what people call "PC"'s.  The
Sun 3/50, for instance, boasts 1.5mips performance.  The Sun 3/60 is a
bit more than twice that.  They are "workstations".  In contrast, the
25MHz 80386 is a bit more than 5 and the 33MHz is something like 7.
The 80486 is rumored to be in the mid to high teens -- right about in
the domain of RISC right now -- and these are "PC"'s.  The line is not
blurred, as many people suggest, but downright nonexistant.  The only
thing that differentiates a "PC" from a "workstation", so far as I can
tell, is the display and the configurations that come from the dealer
(eg PC's tend to come with 1Mb RAM, workstations with 4Mb or more and
increasingly 8Mb or more).  Oh, and the fact that PC's don't tend to
need service contracts.

If it gets the work done at a lower cost and higher reliability, it's
a better tool.  If it's a status symbol, however, rationality doesn't
count.

jim frost
software tool & die
madd at std.com