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Xref: sserve comp.os.386bsd.questions:8032 comp.windows.x.i386unix:6616 Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!constellation!paladin.american.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!cs.utexas.edu!geraldo.cc.utexas.edu!sylvester.cc.utexas.edu!not-for-mail From: vax@sylvester.cc.utexas.edu (Vax) Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.questions,comp.windows.x.i386unix Subject: Re: If you were to assemble a new machine... Date: 18 Jan 1994 02:05:51 -0600 Organization: The University of Texas - Austin Lines: 49 Message-ID: <2hg58v$oj6@sylvester.cc.utexas.edu> References: <1994Jan15.165808.10213@kf8nh.wariat.org> <HVFcgc2w165w@oasys.pc.my> NNTP-Posting-Host: sylvester.cc.utexas.edu In article <HVFcgc2w165w@oasys.pc.my>, Othman Ahmad <othman@oasys.pc.my> wrote: >bsa@kf8nh.wariat.org (Brandon S. Allbery) writes: >An IDE controller needs ZERO bus slot. It uses the ones on the floppy >controller, and if you need another IDE disk, just parallel the ATBUS >connector. An IDE controller needs zero bus slots? Your PC must have some kind of bus design I've never heard of :-) IDE controllers, like SCSI, can control floppy drives, take up one bus slot (unless built into the motherboard; avoid this like the plague!) and cost less than SCSI. They usually cannot seek two drives independently, have no provisions for multi-processing access (e.g. mailboxes) - even if you could seek both, each seek would generate an interrupt when it is done; SCSI typically generates an INT when the first finishes, then has a "status word" that contains all the tasks which finished. If there are IDE controllers which do all this, they are unlikely to be used to their fullest extent under *BSD - that is, you pay but get none of the nifty features. Furthermore, SCSI support tends to be better than IDE support, since most people who use workstations and BSD unixes use SCSI. Large, used, SCSI drives are readily available on the net; try getting a 2GB IDE drive -anywhere-, and a 1GB IDE drive used. It's possible, but hard. SCSI is supported by Mac, most workstations, Amigas (before 4000), and IBM's - IDE is IBM only (and Amiga 4000). Tape backups for SCSI are well-supported, and other peripherals, such as removable hard drives, are obscenely easy to add. Multiple SCSI disks on a fast controller (VESA LB?) provide interleaved swap - a HUGE advantage. I'd suggest 4 2GB SCSI drives - I like Micropolis' 2122(?) - MTBF=300kHrs and 9ms access time - rather than 1 9GB SCSI drive. Don't buy caching drives or controller; buy more & faster RAM. UNIX caches whether you like it or not; adding more caching stages is not as effective a use of money. >It is all a matter of cost. If I have the money, why should I buy a PC in the >first place. There are people who even bought a SPARC workstation. If you have the money, but a Cray. Or a TM. You are correct, people do buy SPARC workstations. That's how Sun stays in business :-) I saw some SPARCs on sale for $3000 in comp-forsale the other month. However, remember peripherals are cheaper for PC's, and will continue to get more so. Mass-marketing has a tendency to bring prices down. Not to mention competition. My -guess- is that very few video capture boards and 16 bit sound cards exist for most workstations in the PC's price range. > BUT for how long will it last? ??? -- Protect our endangered bandwidth - reply by email. NO BIG SIGS! VaX#n8 vax@ccwf.cc.utexas.edu - Don't blame me if the finger daemon is down