🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <SCHLI.92Aug7133548@alaspin.cs.tu-berlin.de>, schli@cs.tu-berlin.de (Wolfram Schlickenrieder) writes:
 
> nmouawad@waterloo.edu (Naji Mouawad) writes:
 
>> rjc@cogsci.ed.ac.uk (Richard Caley) writes:
 
>>    Erik Plesner (ep) writes:
 
>>    ep> o Runs out of space when documents reaches a reasonable size.
 
>>    What a combination, DOS memory brain damage and TeX memory brain
>>    damage at one and the same time :-).

Of course a reasonable TeX implementation doesn't encounter this.
I don't think DOSTeX is even maintained anymore. emTeX, PCTeX and
$\mu$-TeX all can use EMS, leaving sbTeX as the only current TeX
implementation to have the limit described.
 
>> Another option would be to switch to Os/2.
>> Consider the following configuration:
 
>> 32megs of ram expandable to 64, with IEsa bus.
>> 80486 running at 50 Mhz
>> 1.2 giga-bytes hard-drive with under 10 musecs access/seek time
>> Ati Ultra with 1meg on board sram, plus crystal fonts technology to
>> produce on the fly scallable fonts as small or as big as necessary.
>> 15inch Multisynch non-interlaced 1024x780x256 colors.
 
>> What's wrong with such a configuration ? [...]
>> Pc's aren't bad. Looking at them at certain angles is.
 
> 	Ok, I'll tell you, what's wrong with such a configuration: I'd
> 	get two Sparc2 Suns for the same price you paid for your
> 	box!!!
 
I recently priced 486/50 EISAs and found that I could get the
above configuration at 8M RAM+200M HD for about $2500. Add in the
extra ram and hard disk will put one out maybe another $2500
(being generous to the vendor). Total cost for this monster
system is then, say $5000. Most people can make do with the
smaller figure but still, I'd like to know where you can get
Sparc2 Suns for $2500. Does that include niceties like an
operating system? How about availability and cost of software.
While it's what I make my living from, I do need to have more
than TeX and EMACS running on my system. But still, if Sparcs can
be had for $2500 at a non-educational price with the monster mem
and hard disk above, I might be interested in buying one
(assuming that I could find the desk space).

As for good platforms to run TeX on, Blue Sky can now get some
ridiculously large number of pages of the TeXbook processed in
one second on a Mac Quadra (it's either 4 or 40, I forget which,
but even 4 is impressive). Of course the description of a Mac
Quadra as an "ordinary everyday Macintosh" at the TUG meeting is
a bit misleading (what do _those_ go for these days).

For bang for the buck, I still think that an Amiga is probably
the best TeX platform available, although with Tom putting some
work into it, the NeXT TeX implementation might have begun to
catch up with AmigaTeX by now.

-dh

Don Hosek                  
dhosek@ymir.claremont.edu  
Quixote Digital Typography 
714-621-1291