From: ketil@spurv.ii.uib.no (Ketil M. Malde) Subject: Re: Great marketing (Was Re: BYTE asks, is UNIX dead?) Date: 1 Oct 1992 08:24:09 GMT
In article <BvEnpv.Mz1@mtholyoke.edu> jbotz@mtholyoke.edu (Jurgen Botz) writes:
>Unfortunately I fear you may be wrong. Note the "Dec" above. Windows NT
>is being targeted at the new Dec ultra-fast 64bit Risc line, which
>Microsoft will use as a stepping stone into the real computer
>market.
But the Alpha computers will also be running OSF/1 and VMS, and somehow
I have a funny feeling that it'll be a while before someone will be willing
to run a SINGLE-USER operating system on a machine that could support
several dozen X-terminals or hundreds of users on tty lines (these babies
will also cost a bit, even in desktop workstation packages.)
While we're on the subject of funny feeling, I have one that says the
alpha machines will compete in the workstation market, a market that
so far has been dominated entirely by Unices. NT is with this trying
to steal Unix' home niche (or one of them) and I think (just think,
mind you) that *that* will be something to swallow.
Even for MicroShloop
[...]
I don't believe that the [345]86 architectures are going to die out.
In the contrary. The hardware has just achieved the level where just
about everything you'll want to do on a desktop is possible with those
chips, and the only thing holding them back is MS-DOS (which _is_
dying out). Just wait until SGI comes out with a PC-sized version of
the IRIS chip set (or some other company with something similar) and
[...]
Yes, yes, but be careful with what you're saying here. There can be
no doubt that risc cpus beat cisc hands down nowadays. Never say
never. But I agree that the 486 probably will be in use, say 5 to 10
years from now. Hopefully without the atrocities of MS-DOS haunting it.
[...]
No, the architecture is not dead... all it needs is a real operating
system (like, ahem, Linux) and then we could stop hardware advancement
and software would still continue to evolve (to catch up!) for another
20 years.
Hmmm, I'm not quite sure about this (I suppose it was sort of an
understatement, no?:-) I mean, there's a *reason* we're getting sun
ss10's? Also, I believe (but don't know the details) that some of the
problems with PCs are inherent in the system architecture, not in the
chip. And, I have looked at intel assembler. Yuk!
(Don't flame me, or ask what I mean by the last paragraph. I'm not
quite sure myself, you see. Perhaps someone else could explain? :')