Date: Sat, 25 May 1996 13:14:02 +0930 (CST) From: Michael Smith <msmith@atrad.adelaide.edu.au> To: jkh@time.cdrom.com (Jordan K. Hubbard) Cc: louie@TransSys.COM, dennis@etinc.com, karl@mcs.com, hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: The view from here (was Re: ISDN Compression Load on CPU) Message-ID: <199605250344.NAA19280@genesis.atrad.adelaide.edu.au> In-Reply-To: <8011.832959870@time.cdrom.com> from "Jordan K. Hubbard" at May 24, 96 10:44:30 am
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Jordan K. Hubbard stands accused of saying: > I hope that the PC hardware market will eventually come to its senses > and start producing some real high-end commercial quality stuff to > match the workstations. Hand-selected components done by people who > actually know what they're doing, precision case design for both disk > arrays and CPU (I'd like to see totally different MB designs where the > PCI cards come in on rails), basically something done with > fault-tolerance rather than low-cost in mind. Then maybe you'll start > seeing more interesting custom PC setups (with fancy serial-aware > BIOSes, no doubt) in the regional NAPs. A lot of this exists already; you find it in what's known as the "industrial" computer market. We pay about AUD$1000 for the cases our radar controllers go into; for that we get a rackmount case with a drive chassis subframe on rubber mounts, positive-pressure filtered ventilation, EMC shielding suitable for the European markets we're selling into, a decent PSU, &c. &c. There are some really nice 'IPC' (Industrial PC) cases that would make building routers a dream; a the bottom end of the scale you have a wall-mounting box with 4 ISA slots, and at the top end you have things like 20-slot ISA backplanes, or 10 ISA, 6 PCI, or boards that have 2 or 3 seperate ISA backplanes. You pay more for the stuff, sure, but to match it in the 'workstation' world you're looking at VME gear from Force or Digital, and the cost of that sort of gear is _astronomical_. Also, xref. Karl's comments about DIN (what he calls 'VME') connectors. We use these in the hundreds, and whilst the _good_ ones are indeed good for lots of insertions, the cheap ones _aren't_. Also, if you force one in with a bent pin, you've written off the connector, and usually the card as well. Edge connectors have the dual benefits of being _cheap_ and robust. Ask anyone who's dealt with the Unibus/Qbus connectors that DEC used to use for a comparison. > Just remember the plumber's tape analogy for now - using it to run > cables across a carpet is a fine use, taping together a substitute for > cable trays in your machine room is not. :-) ...also please bear in mind that not everyone lives in the USA where the cable trays are cheap; locally-supplied plumbers' tape is, and you can do a lot with the spare cash. > Jordan -- ]] Mike Smith, Software Engineer msmith@atrad.adelaide.edu.au [[ ]] Genesis Software genesis@atrad.adelaide.edu.au [[ ]] High-speed data acquisition and (GSM mobile) 0411-222-496 [[ ]] realtime instrument control (ph/fax) +61-8-267-3039 [[ ]] Collector of old Unix hardware. "Where are your PEZ?" The Tick [[
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