🚀 go-pugleaf

In <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:

 No problem, I own a 386SX-16...

>1) Buy new vga/svga cards/monitors for them - how much faster would
>   this make them?

 I take it you mean that the monochrome monitors are Herc TTL?
I have a Everex mono VGA, with a Trident 8900 card, and it works fine.
You're talking about $150 for VGA card(256K does fine), and mono
VGA monitors.
  This would probably give you a better display.  I don't know if
performance would increase.

>2) Add lots of ram (would RAM + a Cache be a good way to go?)

 Bingo!  4 Megs minimum.  I have 5 Megs of RAM in my machine, and it
is running faster than any DX machine I've seen with only 2 Megs of
RAM under windows.

>3) Invest in coprocessors?

 No, won't help too much.

>4) Try something else (suggestions anyone???), or

>5) Give up and go home?

 Grab yourself something to eat, and then come back.

 I'll tell ya.  With a 386SX-16, monochrome VGA monitor, 256K video
card, and 5 Megs of RAM, Windows is perfectly useable on my machine.
I almost think that the fancy 386DX machines are slightly overrated,
there are too many things they have to stop and wait for, that real
world performance is negligible.  IMO, anyway.

 So, if you can upgrade the RAM easily.  RAM is cheap at $40/Meg.
Otherwise, forget it.

 Better yet, scrap the Windows kludge.  The normal DOS applications work
a hell of a lot faster, using less resources.

-- 
Steve Sheldon         sheldon@iastate.edu
Iowa Cooperative Soil Survey Resource Unit
2142 Agronomy, Iowa State University  (515) 294-5429

-- 
Steve Sheldon         sheldon@iastate.edu
Iowa Cooperative Soil Survey Resource Unit
2142 Agronomy, Iowa State University  (515) 294-5429