🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <Bsu89r.3K6@cs.dal.ca>, goldrick@ug.cs.dal.ca (Majeed  Goldrick) writes:
> Hi everyone,
> 
> I am doing a bit of work for an office with a bunch of 386SX 16MHz machines.
> They are using monochrome monitors (!!!).I would like to get them going on
> some Windows applications, but it would seem to me that this would be 
> extremely slow in the current setup.  The question is - how can I optimize
> these machines for Windows at a reasonable price.  Do I:
O.K my 2 cents worth, note, I'm no expert, but thats never stopped
me before 8-)
> 
> 1) Buy new vga/svga cards/monitors for them - how much faster would
>    this make them?


VGA cards may make the machines more usable, (colors, people like
colors).  SVGA is'nt a good idea, it slows the machines down
by alot, (it needs to squeeze alot more info across the bus than
VGA). As to weather it's cost effective, dunno thats a HCI problem
I think
> 
> 2) Add lots of ram (would RAM + a Cache be a good way to go?)
RAM yes, deffinately RAM, (this is comming from a man who spent
half the night waiting for a 5 min excel tutorial to load on a 
2Mb 386SX).  I suggest at least 4MB if you plan to run any recent
Windows package, e.g W4W 2.0, excel 4.0 etc.  With the price of
RAM nowadays, I think it's the cheapest way to get more speed.
> 
Co-processors?, do you meant maths or graphics/ windows cp_procs?
if you meant the latter I think you're better off getting new
motherboards. reason, to specific and expensive, if you mean
the former, the windows environment uses only integer maths, so
a math coprocessor wont help, (note it will speed up applications
which require real number appilcations though.
> 3) Invest in coprocessors?
> 
> 4) Try something else (suggestions anyone???), or
> 
> 5) Give up and go home?
I really thinks 16MHz SX are still quite usable provided you have
a decent sized hard disk and memory, if all you plan to do are
things like word processing, I say keep'em.
> 
> Please keep in mind that cost IS a factor.  I would appreciate hearing what
> your opinions are - if there is sufficient interest (ie. if this question
> isn't too trivial) I'll summarize on le net.
> 
> 
> Later,
> 
> Majeed.
> 
-- 
 Internet: TSUANIAN@cc.curtin.edu.au
 Bitnet: TSUANIAN%cc.curtin.edu.au@cunyvm.bitnet
 UUCP  : uunet!munnari.oz!cc.curtin.edu.au!TSUANIAN