🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <657@imsvax.UUCP> ted@imsvax.UUCP (Ted Holden) writes:
>
>There are several points to consider concerning the mainframe/micro question
>as it relates to databases.  The 32 meg limit doesn't apply to Novell Netware.
>A Novell server can fully use big disks such as the 300 meg Cores.  Such a 
>server can use several meg of ram as a cache area and adequately service 30
>or so users.  The neat thing is that the entire compute load has been put
>on the individual PCs;  the server is only being required to fetch and store
>info to and from disk.  As servers get more powerful, using 386 and future
>chips, and storage medea gets better, presumably using laser technologies,
>it is easy to anticipate such systems replacing mainframes for most if not
>all database work.  The little ISI glass disks are available now for 
>something like $2500, 256 meg disks going for $100, 1 ms track to track seek
                       ^^^^^^^                 ^^^^ 
                              I'll take 6! :-)
>time.  That's fast!

	This sounds great, but for every improvement in micro technology
	there is also an improvement in "mainframe" technology. They all
	use electronics after all. Current level of super-computer tech.
	is not big enough! Sure I concede that many differing applications
	will continue to migrate to micros, however there will *always*
	be jobs to big to be done on any computer! (NSA, NOAA, NASA, NORAD,
	Pan Am, IRS, DOE, DOD, etc)  I still contend thousands of reservation
	desks and travel agents all accessing the same data base will not
	be done with micros. Sure, the terminal ends may be micros but the
	hub will be a monster machine.
>
>I've seen 750 and 780 VAXs destroyed by fewer than 30 people doing database
>work (or attempting same) at the same time.  The PCs are faster and better.

	VAXen are mini-computers and are also very old. I agree the 7xx series
	has lived long enough... The distinction between minis and super-
	micros and between super-micros and micros becomes muddier every
	day. 

>The PC revolution, like our free-market system as opposed to communism, takes
>human nature into account, at least as it applies to bosses and managers.

	Tools are tools, each is used for a different job. Managers and
	bosses who refuse to recongnize this fact deserve every thing
	the free-market system can take away from them. :-) PCs are good
	at what they do and are getting better, but big machines are getting
	better too, you just don't read about it in PC-World. 

>I've never yet seen one of these who, upon hiring three new people to work
>on a multi-user computer system, didn't simply add three new terminals to 
>the system.  With PC networks, they are forced to add three new computers
>to the system.  And the beauty is that they do so with smiles on their faces,
>since PCs have gotten to the point of being cheaper than most mainframe
>terminals anyhow.
	
	It still depends on what you expect these 3 people to do... 
>
>Ted Holden
>IMS

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