🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <7114@m1.cs.man.ac.uk> mshute@cs.man.ac.uk (Malcolm Shute)  
writes:

[ .. much needed: a definition of what comprises a WorkStation :-) ]

> In article <WAYNE.93Jan3184216@backbone.uucp> wayne@backbone.uucp (Wayne 
> Schlitt) writes:
> >* A workstation must be network ready.
> >  This doesn't mean that you can't have one workstation sitting
> >  somewhere, but you must be able to add additional workstations 
> >  easily.

You might say. My workstation is only connected to the mains :-) and its  
own phone connection - the (thin) ethernet and 10T twisted pair ethernet  
connectors are idle ...

> For me, you've hit the nail on the head, here... as did a later poster
> by observing, rather flippantly, that you are more likely to have to 
> login on a workstation than on a PC.

Of course you have to log in to a workstation - it's valuable equipment. A  
PC is for everyone strolling into your room ...

> A personal computer, it would seem to me, is a computer that is for one 
> person's personal use.  A workstation is a station which is available 
> for doing work, presumably by anyone who can demand it.

Almost. A workstation is a computer you'd buy for yourself. A PC is a  
'computer' management buys for you.

> My workstation here is in a locked office... but anyone on the network
> can send work to it, or even remotely login to it.  I would say that if 
> it weren't for this property, that I would have a PC connected to a 
> network. Similary, as Wayne points out, it is equally possible to have a 
> WS which is not (yet) connected to a network... but is ready to be so.

And even if it's not (directly) connected to the network, you still can  
use it for network-like services: I'm perfectly capable of running  
crayperf (Cray Inc.'s system performance monitor) from the C90 of the  
European Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasts over a SLIP link to the  
X-Window implementation on my home system - It just works. Now try to do  
THAT with a Personal Computer :-)

--
Toon Moene (toon@moene.indiv.nluug.nl)
Kantershof 269, 1104 GN  Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Tel.: + 31 20 6982029; Fax: + 31 20 6003411
No Disclaimers; a NeXT at home protects against this occupational hazard.