Need buying advice for 386 and Unix

[John C. Archambeau]

fangchin at elaine41.stanford.edu (Chin Fang) writes:
>liu>I also have an AT clone, which is basically used by my wife as a
>liu>word-processor.  It only has Hercules graphics and a 44MB harddisk.
>liu>Does it make sense to swap in a 386 motherboard?
>
>I am afraid the answer is NO! Just a motherboard is not adqueate.  You also
>need a large and fast hard disk.  Personally I quite like Cornor's 210Megs
>3.5" SCSI(or IDE).  It's quiet, much quiter than the internal hd in my 
>SUN sparc 1+, it is inexpensive too. about $750 (SCSI adapter not included)
>and I have several times success using it with ESIX Rev. D R3.2 for both
>IDE and SCSI types.  
> 
>As to vedio subsystem, I feel your current one also won't let you take 
>advantage of most Unices can offer, especially X. A good combo for code
>developement would be a Tseng ET4000 chip based SVGA ($300 or less) and
>a NEC 4D.  Total price ~= $1300.
> 
>386 33Mhz motherboards are quite stable now. So get one that allows you to
>install at least 8 megs Simm on the motherboard and 8 Megs more on 32 bit
>memory expension card (Make sure the slot is for 32bit!!!!)
> 
>Total price motherboard + 16 Megs memory(with expension card) 
>~= $850 + $37x16 + $95 = $1537
>
>If you like to put on a few more sram cache memory on, get one that allows
>you to equip up to 128K. Once you have more than 32K sram cache, you would
>have about 8 MIPs on your desk, which is about 3/4th of Sun's Sparc 1's.
>Not bad! $300 more you get a 486 isa motherboard, then using the memory
>configuration above, your potential system beats my sparc 1+!!!!

A 486/33 motherboard will yield about 14 to 15 MIPS.  But keep in mind the
bottleneck going across the ISA bus.  A 64-bit processor running on a 16-bit
bus.  Sort of reminds me of a traffic jam when a highway suddenly goes from 4
lanes to 1 (which is the correct ratio).  Do NOT get a 486 unless you're going
to go EISA or MCA.  It's a waste of CPU bus bandwidth if you don't.

>Get a new minitower case with a healthy power supply (over 220 W!) $100 or so.
>I don't think you need math-coprossor. That saves you $500 for a 33Mhz i387.
>A good sized, non-interlaced monitor like NEC 4D is EXTREMElY important to 
>your eyes if you like to do program developement.  I confess being spoiled by
>workstations' display.  But don't you like to protect your eyes?  Besides,
>running X even using 800x600 is not really that helpful for looking at codes.
>Sixty some lines would be good for looking at an entire function body assuming
>you programm in C(?)
> 
>Liu>What about the Unix?  Does the new Dell4.0 sound good to you?  The
>Liu>accompanying software seems to be everything anyone would ever desire.
>Liu>Well, it has X-windows anyway, which is what I'm worried about now.
>Liu>(I'm also hooked on emacs and TeX, but I presume they will build on
>Liu>just about any hardware I might pick up.)
>
>As mentioned in FAQ, it's up to you to decide.  I can't help you on that.  I 
>don't have R4 yet.  I am sure someone else will give you help on this one.
> 
>Liu>The system will be used for program development, so it can't be too
>Liu>non-standard.  Software portability is an issue.
>Liu>
>Liu>Crocker Liu    cliu at rnd.gba.nyu.edu
> 
>I don't think you will go too wrong with today's 386 hardware assuming you won't
>buy some really untested/unheard el'chippo and then put in lot's networking 
>hardware, then most likely you should be fine.  A few lession I learned so far
>(1) go with AMI BIOS, the later, the better.

What the (*bleep*) does the BIOS have to do with Unix other than booting the
machine and getting system configuration information?  When you can't do a
CTRL-ALT-ESC or CTRL-ALT-S to get into your CMOS setup during your Unix boot
up is when the services of the BIOS are no longer needed.  Phoenix will work
just as well.  ALR's are Novell and SCO certified and they use a Phoenix BIOS.

>(2) ESDI adapters typically give you less trouble than SCSI. (Cornor's IDE is
>    fine in all cases I tried, so you might want to give it a look)

    ESDI gets a better thoroughput over SCSI on the ISA bus by about a third.
    I have yet to see a SCSI host adaptor yield greater than 10 Mbit/second on
    the ISA bus.  ESDI gives a 15 Mbit/second.  A lot of your high performance
    IDE's are the same throughput as ESDI (Conner, Maxtor, and Imprimis).

>(3) get Toshiba SIMMs.

Why Toshiba?  Memory is memory.  NEC, TI, et. al.  Only memory I stay away
from is Oki since their chips have a high failure rate (at least that's my
experience with their DRAM chips).


You don't need all of that to run a 386 Unix.  I've been doing quite well
fending with a 386SX and an ST412/506 MFM 2:1 interleave controller.  Now this
is what's going to get you.  I'm only running 50 Mb total on my system.  I
have one Seagate ST151 (42.5 Mb) and a Rodime RO352 (10.6 Mb) on my system. 
Af
After you lay down SCO Xenix 386 2.3.3 complete with VP/ix, you have about 10
have gulped down about 32 Mb of space on your drive roughly.  Your mileage may
very depending on how much swap you allocate.

I have everything for Xenix 386 save Xsight, Streams, TCP/IP, and Xenix-Net.
As for speed.  Well, I have a DigiBoard COM/4 (dumb board, now called a PC/4)
which is just four NS16450 UART chips with a modem and a Televideo 910
terminal hooked to it now.  Speed isn't affected dramatically (if at all)
while the DigiBoard ports are being used.

Sure, all of that glitter is nice, but one could easily get by with a pair of
40 Mb drives or a single 80 Mb.  Only problem is if you want to allocate a DOS
partition, then you have to add the space of the DOS partition to your drive.

If you want a solid product, SCO Xenix is still a good route to go inspite of
SCO has planned for it in the next year or two.

I suspect that one could reasonably expect just as pleasing results with
respect to bare necessities to system configuration with respect to uPort,
ISC, Dell, Intel, ESIX, and UHC (I know I missed some).

 
     // JCA

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