🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1993Jan3.144052.13547@mnemosyne.cs.du.edu>
istuart@nyx.cs.du.edu (Ian Stuart) writes:

>In article <50921@shamash.cdc.com> slc@a2.cim.cdc.com
>(Steve Chesney x4662) writes:

>>Since she is used to our 386, it seems slow to her.  Are there any cheap and
>>simple upgrades that we could try to alleviate this?

[SNIP, SNIP]

>Unfortunatly there is no way to make any real improvements to an XT,
>without spending enough money to buy another computer.

This is true of those who keep their computers in tune.  It's
remarkable how often I hear the following: "My computer was really
fast when I first got it; but now it's terribly slow.  I guess it's
time to upgrade the processor to an 80-blip-86?"  (These people did
not even buy Windows.)

Two people I know have old 8 Mhz 80286 AT clones and bought 1992
software.  Grrrind..faaalicck, faaalick, faaalick scrolled the screen.

The first machine had only 640K of memory, and LotusWorks wouldn't
even load.  When it finally did, and the disk was defragmented, Lotus
scrolled like a hog leaping in slow motion.  DR-DOS then placed every
driver and TSR into upper memory (including in an unused part of video
RAM).  After a careful tuning, he has a disk cache, video accelerator,
screen saver, printer buffer, and task swapper active.  LotusWorks
zips along, and it and other large programs swap in and out instantly.
The machine has never crashed.  When 2 Mb of extended memory was added
(1 Mb configured as XMS swap space), no improvement was noted.

The other AT surely has the world's slowest hard drive (it has to be
the largest), but ran a disk-intensive program last night faster than
a new and untuned 40 Mhz 80386 machine with a 200 Mb. disk and 8 Mb of
memory.

(Oh, yes...I vouch for the accuracy of the above, and give my cat
Buffy as an impartial witness.)

My point is that those improvements suggested by Mr. Cheny could make
a great difference when combined.  Computers, like cars, should be
carefully tuned when new and kept that way.

Bruce (Gypsy Scholar)
-- 
Department of Geological and Geophysical Sciences
Princeton University, Princeton, NJ 08544
bathurst@phoenix.princeton.edu bathurst@pucc.bitnet !princeton!phoenix!bathurst