🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <76700077@p.cs.uiuc.edu>, gillies@p.cs.uiuc.edu writes:
|  But most office clerical work needs no more than an XT 8088 machine
|  and WordPerfect.  They don't need color, SPICE, or a large database.
|  Let's hope these clericals are doomed, or the PC industry will die as
|  they flourish.

davidsen@crdos1.crd.ge.COM (Wm E Davidsen Jr) writes:
|  Sorry, you're making poor use of your clerical workers. SPICE they
| don't need, but access to databases, color highlighting for better
| productivity, and bit mapped graphics to display pictures and drawings
| all boost productivity.

  I can give a good example of nominally "clerical" workers needing more
capacity than a low-end pc...

  At Ork University, we provide clerical staff and first-level supervisory
staff with either PCs attached to a ring or terminals attached to VAXen.
The PCs have various office-productivity tools.  The VAXen have mail.
Both of them bottleneck their users.

  This is most obvious when you are discussing the first-level supervisors.
We use MMIPS as a measure of required processor power: MIllions of Mail
messages Per Second. (See, this does have something to do with architecture).
They need exactly the same facilities I use to manage 8 timesharing machines.
They need status indicators for mail to various mailboxes (projects,
machines), multiple windows so they can can work on more than one message
or paper at any one time, and the kind of clarity and display quality that
you get with an older workstation, not a PC.  My supervisor needs either
an X-terminal or my Sun 3/50.  

  The junior clerical staff also need the ability to work on more than
one thing at a time, or they have to resort to scribbled notes about
what other things they can't work on because we've shortchanged them.

  All in all, the low-end users need the same **kinds** of things everyone
else does.  We elect not to spend much money on them because we can't
always recoup it in staff reductions (the non-productivity of knowledge
workers is the subject of postings elsewhere).

  Architecturally, the low-end worker needs an inexpensive processor with
moderate power, a large (non-convoluted portion of an?) address space,
normal interprocess protections and software to run on the machine.
This is a niche which small manufacturers can play in (eg, low-cost new
machines compatible with older, slower workstations), and manufacturers
can supply (eg, almost-fast enough chipsets, well-amortized older
production products).  It does require that the components evolve to
track their high-cost bretheren (so one can use this years software on
them: 68010s need not apply!).

--dave
-- 
David Collier-Brown,  | davecb@yunexus, ...!yunexus!davecb or
72 Abitibi Ave.,      | {toronto area...}lethe!dave 
Willowdale, Ontario,  | Joyce C-B:
CANADA. 416-223-8968  |    He's so smart he's dumb.